Effect of Acute Ketamine Treatment on Sympathetic Regulation Indexed by Electrodermal Activity in Adolescent Major Depression.
Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) – March 10, 2024
Source: PubMed
Summary
Ketamine rapidly eased severe depressive symptoms in adolescents. Researchers investigated if a single ketamine infusion impacted sympathetic regulation, measured by electrodermal activity, alongside depressive symptomatology in adolescent girls with major depressive disorder. Findings showed significant improvement in depressive symptoms with no change in electrodermal activity. This indicates ketamine's potential as a safe, acute treatment for a severe episode of major depressive disorder in adolescence, positively affecting mood without altering sympathetic regulation.
Abstract
Ketamine is a potential rapid-onset antidepressant characterized by sympathomimetic effects. However, the question of ketamine's use in treating adolescents' major depressive disorder (MDD) is still discussed. Thus, we aimed to study the acute effect of ketamine infusion treatment on sympathetic regulation using electrodermal activity (EDA) in addition to an assessment of depressive symptomatology in MDD adolescents. Twenty hospitalized adolescent girls with MDD (average age: 15.0 ± 1.46 yrs.) were examined before and two hours after a single intravenous infusion of ketamine. EDA was continuously recorded for 6 min, and depressive symptoms were assessed before and two hours after ketamine administration. The evaluated parameters included skin conductance level (SCL), nonspecific electrodermal responses (NS-SCRs), MADRS (questions no. 1-10, total score), and CDI (items A-E, total score). EDA parameters showed no significant changes after the ketamine treatment, and depressive symptoms were significantly reduced after the ketamine infusion. The analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between index SCL and CDI-A, CDI-E, and the total CDI score and between index NS-SCRs and MADRS no. 4 before the ketamine treatment. In conclusion, ketamine improved depressive symptomatology without a significant effect on EDA, indicating its potential safety and efficiency as an acute antidepressant intervention in adolescent MDD.