Glutamatergic mechanisms in early salience processing.
Frontiers in pharmacology January 1, 2025 Denise Elfriede Liesa Lockhofen, Nils Hübner, Ranjan Debnath et al. 2 citations
Ketamine, which blocks the NMDA receptor and temporarily mimics schizophrenia-like symptoms, primarily disrupts how the brain processes distracting stimuli rather than targets or rewards. In a visual attention task with reward-related distractors, healthy volunteers given a subclinical dose of ketamine showed increased gamma band power compared to placebo, especially during salient distractor trials. These effects were linked to the occurrence of negative symptoms. The findings highlight the glutamate system's role in dysfunctional gamma oscillations, early salience processing alterations, and negative symptoms in schizophrenia.