Ketamine use: a review Morgan, Celia J. A.; Curran, H. Valerie
Addiction (Abingdon, England),
January 2012, Letnik:
107, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
ABSTRACT
Aims Ketamine remains an important medicine in both specialist anaesthesia and aspects of pain management. At the same time, its use as a recreational drug has spread in many parts of the ...world during the past few years. There are now increasing concerns about the harmful physical and psychological consequences of repeated misuse of this drug. The aim of this review was to survey and integrate the research literature on physical, psychological and social harms of both acute and chronic ketamine use.
Method The literature on ketamine was systematically searched and findings were classified into the matrix of Nutt et al.'s (2007) rational scale for assessing the harms of psychoactive substances.
Results A major physical harm is ketamine induced ulcerative cystitis which, although its aetiology is unclear, seems particularly associated with chronic, frequent use of the drug. Frequent, daily use is also associated with neurocognitive impairment and, most robustly, deficits in working and episodic memory. Recent studies suggest certain neurological abnormalities which may underpin these cognitive effects. Many frequent users are concerned about addiction and report trying but failing to stop using ketamine.
Conclusions The implications of these findings are drawn out for treatment of ketamine‐induced ulcerative cystitis in which interventions from urologists and from addiction specialists should be coordinated. Neurocognitive impairment in frequent users can impact negatively upon achievement in education and at work, and also compound addiction problems. Prevention and harm minimization campaigns are needed to alert young people to these harmful and potentially chronic effects of ketamine.
In an increasing number of states and countries, cannabis now stands poised to join alcohol and tobacco as a legal drug. Quantifying the relative adverse and beneficial effects of cannabis and its ...constituent cannabinoids should therefore be prioritized. Whereas newspaper headlines have focused on links between cannabis and psychosis, less attention has been paid to the much more common problem of cannabis addiction. Certain cognitive changes have also been attributed to cannabis use, although their causality and longevity are fiercely debated. Identifying why some individuals are more vulnerable than others to the adverse effects of cannabis is now of paramount importance to public health. Here, we review the current state of knowledge about such vulnerability factors, the variations in types of cannabis, and the relationship between these and cognition and addiction.
Maladaptive reward memories (MRMs) are involved in the development and maintenance of acquired overconsumption disorders, such as harmful alcohol and drug use. The process of memory reconsolidation - ...where stored memories become briefly labile upon retrieval - may offer a means to disrupt MRMs and prevent relapse. However, reliable means for pharmacologically weakening MRMs in humans remain elusive. Here we demonstrate that the N-methyl D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist ketamine is able to disrupt MRMs in hazardous drinkers when administered immediately after their retrieval. MRM retrieval + ketamine (RET + KET) effectively reduced the reinforcing effects of alcohol and long-term drinking levels, compared to ketamine or retrieval alone. Blood concentrations of ketamine and its metabolites during the critical 'reconsolidation window' predicted beneficial changes only following MRM reactivation. Pharmacological reconsolidation interference may provide a means to rapidly rewrite maladaptive memory and should be further pursued in alcohol and drug use disorders.
•First systematic review of how CBD influences the acute effects of THC in humans.•Sixteen studies were identified, including a total of 466 participants.•Heterogeneity in dose, route of ...administration and THC:CBD ratio.•Risk of bias across within and across studies was typically low.•CBD influenced the effects of THC in some but not all studies.•The most common finding was that CBD reduced the acute effects of THC, however, results were mixed.•CBD may reduce intense experiences of anxiety or psychosis-like effects of THC but this was not seen in all studies.•CBD may blunt effects of THC on emotion and reward processing.•CBD did not alter subjective intoxication or psychomotor effects of THC.•CBD may influence the benefits and harms of cannabis.
The recent liberalisation of cannabis regulation has increased public and scientific debate about its potential benefits and risks. A key focus has been the extent to which cannabidiol (CBD) might influence the acute effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), but this has never been reviewed systematically. In this systematic review of how CBD influences the acute effects of THC we identified 16 studies involving 466 participants. Ten studies were judged at low risk of bias. The findings were mixed, although CBD was found to reduce the effects of THC in several studies. Some studies found that CBD reduced intense experiences of anxiety or psychosis-like effects of THC and blunted some of the impairments on emotion and reward processing. However, CBD did not consistently influence the effects of THC across all studies and outcomes. There was considerable heterogeneity in dose, route of administration and THC:CBD ratio across studies and no clear dose-response profile emerged. Although findings were mixed, this review suggests that CBD may interact with some acute effects of THC.
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is the prototypical psychedelic drug, but its effects on the human brain have never been studied before with modern neuroimaging. Here, three complementary ...neuroimaging techniques: arterial spin labeling (ASL), blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) measures, and magnetoencephalography (MEG), implemented during resting state conditions, revealed marked changes in brain activity after LSD that correlated strongly with its characteristic psychological effects. Increased visual cortex cerebral blood flow (CBF), decreased visual cortex alpha power, and a greatly expanded primary visual cortex (V1) functional connectivity profile correlated strongly with ratings of visual hallucinations, implying that intrinsic brain activity exerts greater influence on visual processing in the psychedelic state, thereby defining its hallucinatory quality. LSD’s marked effects on the visual cortex did not significantly correlate with the drug’s other characteristic effects on consciousness, however. Rather, decreased connectivity between the parahippocampus and retrosplenial cortex (RSC) correlated strongly with ratings of “ego-dissolution” and “altered meaning,” implying the importance of this particular circuit for the maintenance of “self” or “ego” and its processing of “meaning.” Strong relationships were also found between the different imaging metrics, enabling firmer inferences to be made about their functional significance. This uniquely comprehensive examination of the LSD state represents an important advance in scientific research with psychedelic drugs at a time of growing interest in their scientific and therapeutic value. The present results contribute important new insights into the characteristic hallucinatory and consciousness-altering properties of psychedelics that inform on how they can model certain pathological states and potentially treat others.
Psilocybin is a serotonin receptor agonist that occurs naturally in some mushroom species. Recent studies have assessed the therapeutic potential of psilocybin for various conditions, including ...end-of-life anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and smoking and alcohol dependence, with promising preliminary results. Here, we aimed to investigate the feasibility, safety, and efficacy of psilocybin in patients with unipolar treatment-resistant depression.
In this open-label feasibility trial, 12 patients (six men, six women) with moderate-to-severe, unipolar, treatment-resistant major depression received two oral doses of psilocybin (10 mg and 25 mg, 7 days apart) in a supportive setting. There was no control group. Psychological support was provided before, during, and after each session. The primary outcome measure for feasibility was patient-reported intensity of psilocybin's effects. Patients were monitored for adverse reactions during the dosing sessions and subsequent clinic and remote follow-up. Depressive symptoms were assessed with standard assessments from 1 week to 3 months after treatment, with the 16-item Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptoms (QIDS) serving as the primary efficacy outcome. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, number ISRCTN14426797.
Psilocybin's acute psychedelic effects typically became detectable 30–60 min after dosing, peaked 2–3 h after dosing, and subsided to negligible levels at least 6 h after dosing. Mean self-rated intensity (on a 0–1 scale) was 0·51 (SD 0·36) for the low-dose session and 0·75 (SD 0·27) for the high-dose session. Psilocybin was well tolerated by all of the patients, and no serious or unexpected adverse events occurred. The adverse reactions we noted were transient anxiety during drug onset (all patients), transient confusion or thought disorder (nine patients), mild and transient nausea (four patients), and transient headache (four patients). Relative to baseline, depressive symptoms were markedly reduced 1 week (mean QIDS difference −11·8, 95% CI −9·15 to −14·35, p=0·002, Hedges' g=3·1) and 3 months (−9·2, 95% CI −5·69 to −12·71, p=0·003, Hedges' g=2) after high-dose treatment. Marked and sustained improvements in anxiety and anhedonia were also noted.
This study provides preliminary support for the safety and efficacy of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression and motivates further trials, with more rigorous designs, to better examine the therapeutic potential of this approach.
Medical Research Council.
With a political debate about the potential risks and benefits of cannabis use as a backdrop, the wave of legalization and liberalization initiatives continues to spread. Four states (Colorado, ...Washington, Oregon, and Alaska) and the District of Columbia have passed laws that legalized cannabis for recreational use by adults, and 23 others plus the District of Columbia now regulate cannabis use for medical purposes. These policy changes could trigger a broad range of unintended consequences, with profound and lasting implications for the health and social systems in our country. Cannabis use is emerging as one among many interacting factors that can affect brain development and mental function. To inform the political discourse with scientific evidence, the literature was reviewed to identify what is known and not known about the effects of cannabis use on human behavior, including cognition, motivation, and psychosis.
ABSTRACT
Background ‘Recreational’ use of ketamine is spreading rapidly among young people. In healthy individuals an acute dose of the N‐methyl D‐aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist ketamine ...induces marked psychosis‐like effects and cognitive impairments, but little is known about the long‐term effects of the drug.
Aims To evaluate the long‐term neuropsychiatric or cognitive consequences.
Methods A total of 150 individuals were assessed, 30 in each of five groups: frequent ketamine users, infrequent ketamine users, abstinent users, polydrug controls and non‐users of illicit drugs. Twelve months later, 80% of these individuals were re‐tested.
Results Cognitive deficits were mainly observed only in frequent users. In this group, increasing ketamine use over the year was correlated with decreasing performance on spatial working memory and pattern recognition memory tasks. Assessments of psychological wellbeing showed greater dissociative symptoms in frequent users and a dose–response effect on delusional symptoms, with frequent users scoring higher than infrequent, abstinent users and non‐users, respectively. Both frequent and abstinent using groups showed increased depression scores over the 12 months.
Conclusions These findings imply that heavy use of ketamine is harmful to aspects of both cognitive function and psychological wellbeing. Health education campaigns need to raise awareness among young people and clinicians about these negative consequences of ketamine use.
Background:
Synthetic cannabinoids are, typically, full agonists at the cannabinoid CB1 receptor, and therefore considerably more potent than natural cannabis and may have correspondingly more ...serious psychological effects. Despite government sanctions against their production they continue to be available in ever-increasing varieties over the Internet. The psychological consequences of synthetic cannabinoid use are relatively unknown.
Aim:
The purpose of this study was to synthesise the available research on the psychological consequences of synthetic cannabinoid use.
Method:
A literature search of three databases was conducted in February 2018, including the following keywords: Spice, synthetic cannabis, cognition, affect, behaviour, psychosis, depression and anxiety.
Results:
Seventeen studies involving a variety of participants were eligible for inclusion: one controlled administration study, seven cross-sectional studies, five Internet surveys and four qualitative studies. The controlled administration study showed that, compared to placebo, synthetic cannabinoids acutely affected some aspects of cognitive functioning and subjective psychological ratings. Non-controlled, cross-sectional studies generally showed that synthetic cannabinoid users had lower performance on cognitive tasks and showed elevated symptomatology (e.g. paranoia) compared to both natural cannabis and non-cannabis users. Methodological limitations were noted across different study designs. There is limited research on how doses, frequency or type of synthetic cannabinoid influence outcomes.
Conclusions:
Acute synthetic cannabinoid use can result in a range of psychological outcomes and, when non-intoxicated, synthetic cannabinoid users appear to differ from natural cannabis and non-users on various affective and cognitive domains. As synthetic cannabinoid use is increasing in at-risk populations there is an urgent need for more and better research to inform users, professionals and policymakers.
Psilocybin with psychological support is showing promise as a treatment model in psychiatry but its therapeutic mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, cerebral blood flow (CBF) and blood ...oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after treatment with psilocybin (serotonin agonist) for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Quality pre and post treatment fMRI data were collected from 16 of 19 patients. Decreased depressive symptoms were observed in all 19 patients at 1-week post-treatment and 47% met criteria for response at 5 weeks. Whole-brain analyses revealed post-treatment decreases in CBF in the temporal cortex, including the amygdala. Decreased amygdala CBF correlated with reduced depressive symptoms. Focusing on a priori selected circuitry for RSFC analyses, increased RSFC was observed within the default-mode network (DMN) post-treatment. Increased ventromedial prefrontal cortex-bilateral inferior lateral parietal cortex RSFC was predictive of treatment response at 5-weeks, as was decreased parahippocampal-prefrontal cortex RSFC. These data fill an important knowledge gap regarding the post-treatment brain effects of psilocybin, and are the first in depressed patients. The post-treatment brain changes are different to previously observed acute effects of psilocybin and other 'psychedelics' yet were related to clinical outcomes. A 'reset' therapeutic mechanism is proposed.
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