Long-term stress can drain the color out of everything—sweet drinks taste bland and friends feel like strangers. According to research published in Neuron and reported by Eric W. Dolan in Psypost, a team of researchers learned how ketamine puts the color back.
They injected slow-release stress hormone under the skin of the animals; after three weeks, the mice stopped caring about sugar water, social time, or working for treats. One low, sub-knockout dose of ketamine turned the lights back on in less than a day.
Peering into the brain's reward hub, the scientists saw that stress had blocked the connections to a set of motivation-linked cells. Ketamine reconnected them. When the team severed those connections, the good mood vanished even though the drug was still on board.
Previously:
• Dr. Bronner's soap company is now offering ketamine therapy to its employees
• Tripping on ketamine lifts depression in fish
• Ketamine works great for depression and other conditions, and costs $10/dose; the new FDA-approved 'ketamine' performs badly in trials and costs a fortune
• Dissociative psychedelic Ketamine may help suicidal children
• Ketamine helps depressed patients temporarily experience pleasure again
• FDA approves J&J's patented psychedelic esketamine for depression without requiring you take other antidepressants with it
• Doctors describe what it's like giving ketamine to patients: apparently Enya helps
