Subanesthetic ketamine reactivates adult cortical plasticity to restore vision from amblyopia
bioRxiv Preprint Server March 16, 2020 Steven F. Grieco, Xin Qiao, Xiaoting Zheng et al. 14 citations preprint
A single dose of ketamine reactivates visual cortical plasticity in adult mice and restores visual acuity defects caused by amblyopia. Ketamine reduces neuregulin-1 (NRG1) expression in parvalbumin-expressing (PV) inhibitory neurons, leading to rapid and sustained decreases in synaptic inhibition to excitatory neurons and reduced synaptic excitation to PV neurons. These effects are blocked by adding NRG1 or removing its receptor from PV neurons. The findings indicate that ketamine's reactivation of adult visual cortical plasticity works through cortical disinhibition via downregulation of PV-specific NRG1 signaling, revealing a neural plasticity-based mechanism for functional recovery from adult amblyopia.