Modulation of the functional connectome in major depressive disorder by ketamine therapy.
Psychological medicine October 1, 2022 Ashish K Sahib, Joana R Loureiro, Megha Vasavada et al. 36 citations
Ketamine infusion therapy can rapidly relieve depression, but its effects on whole-brain functional connections are not well understood. In patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), baseline resting-state functional connectivity (FC) differed from healthy controls in the somatomotor network and between association and default mode networks. After one and four ketamine infusions, these disrupted FC patterns trended toward those of controls. Serial ketamine treatment significantly decreased FC between the cerebellum and the salience network. Patients who remitted showed higher pre-treatment FC between the cerebellum and striatum that decreased after treatment, while non-remitters showed the opposite pattern. Ketamine induces neurofunctional plasticity in cortico-striatal-cerebellar loops involving the salience network, which may serve as a biomarker for treatment response.