Glycine attenuates impairments of stimulus-evoked gamma oscillation in the ketamine model of schizophrenia
bioRxiv Preprint Server April 15, 2021 Moritz Haaf, Stjepan Curic, Saskia Steinmann et al. preprint
A reduction in the early auditory evoked gamma-band response (aeGBR), a type of brain wave, is seen in both schizophrenia patients and healthy people given ketamine, which mimics the brain's excitation/inhibition imbalance thought to underlie the disorder. This change in brain activity is linked to negative symptoms. In a study of 24 healthy men, ketamine alone reduced the aeGBR amplitude and increased negative symptoms as measured by the PANSS scale. Pretreatment with the amino acid glycine lessened both the brain-wave alteration and the symptom increase in those who responded to glycine. The aeGBR may serve as a biomarker to identify schizophrenia patients with negative symptoms who could benefit from glutamatergic treatments.