Ultra-high Field fMRI Reveals Effect of Ketamine on Vocal Processing in Common Marmosets.
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience April 9, 2025 Audrey Dureux, Alessandro Zanini, Azadeh Jafari et al. 3 citations
Ketamine, a drug that blocks NMDA receptors, broadly suppresses brain activity in auditory regions of awake marmoset monkeys, especially when they hear other marmosets' calls. Using ultra-high field fMRI at 9.4 T, the study compared brain responses to vocalizations, scrambled versions, and nonvocal sounds after a subanesthetic dose of ketamine versus saline. Ketamine caused widespread reduction of activations across auditory areas and produced distinct changes in the mediodorsal thalamus and anterior cingulate cortex during vocalization processing. These effects overlap with neural disruptions seen in schizophrenia, suggesting ketamine can model auditory processing deficits in this disorder.