Ketamine: the hopes and the hurdles.

i a c s t r l o s d n K etamine and related drugs are arguably one of the most exciting developments in antidepressant pharmacology in more than half a century and are a potentially new mechaism capable of mediating antidepressant action. That mechanism s the antagonism of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor NR) and possibly one or more subtypes of that receptor. By blockng NMDA receptors, ketamine and related drugs target glutamate, hich is the major excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain and a ransmitter not directly affected by any currently marketed antideressant. In their thought-provoking paper, aan het Rot and colleagues (1) eview many of the studies that have been done with ketamine to ate and suggest some necessary steps forward in its development.