Neuroscientific Basis of Ketamine as an Analgesic and Emerging Role in the Management of Depression.
Current pain and headache reports April 21, 2026 Navy C Coggins, Hanson A Chokr, Tricia A Meyer et al.
Ketamine, originally developed as a dissociative anesthetic, has expanded beyond procedural sedation to pain management and psychiatry. In pain medicine, its therapeutic rationale is grounded in noncompetitive antagonism of the NMDA receptor and modulation of central sensitization, key mechanisms underlying refractory neuropathic and centralized pain states. Evidence from preclinical studies and randomized clinical trials suggests intravenous ketamine may provide short-term analgesic benefit for resistant neuropathic pain, phantom limb pain, and complex regional pain syndrome. Low-dose perioperative administration has demonstrated opioid-sparing effects as part of multimodal analgesia.