
What is Ketamine?
Ketamine is a medication mainly used for starting and maintaining anesthesia. It induces a trance-like state while providing pain relief, sedation, and memory loss. Other uses include for chronic pain and for sedation in intensive care. Heart function, breathing, and airway reflexes generally remain functional. Ketamine is a drug that serves multiple purposes, it affects multiple pathways in the brain. Interacting with the glutamate system in our brain, it blocks glutamate receptors. Glutamate plays a role in neuron communication, so hindering their reception will create the anesthetic effect in the brain. Similar to how naltrexone interacts with opiate receptors, low doses of ketamine may actually increase production of the neurotransmitter it inhibits.