Francis McClarnon
August 28th 2020
Ketamine and Neuroplasticity II
Which Conditions can Ketamine Help?
In our last article about we discussed how ketamine increases the release of a growth hormone in the brain called brain derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF. This growth factor stimulates growth of new neurons in the brain and growth of new connections between existing neurons.
There are regions in the brain that have useful functions to help us survive. There are three regions that are important to the discussion of major depression, PTSD, OCD and generalized anxiety disorder. One area is called the locus coeruleus (sir-rue-lee-us) (LC). This is the fear center of the brain. The LC is in the oldest part of our brain, our primal brain. It is located in the brain stem. It drives fear and releases noradrenaline so that we can react to scary things and survive. All the way on the other side of the brain in the prefrontal cortex is the amygdala. When you here the word frontal you should think of executive functions. Someone in a business suit analyzing data, making decisions. The frontal cortex is our newest brain that makes decisions and analyzes data. We have two amygdalae, one in each temporal lobe. These two regions of the brain (LC and amygdalae) communicate directly. The LC sends noradrenalin to the amygdalae and that triggers the amygdalae to send signals to the LC to inhibit it’s functions so that the fear doesn’t go overboard as in PTSD, GAD and major depression. In other words The amygdalae are saying “calm down, let’s work this out and figure things out”. “Is this even the thing that your fear, or does it just look like it, sound like it or smell like it??”
Between these two regions is the hippocampus. This area is where memories are formed. Not just things like who was the 20th president of the U.S. It can also form fearful memories which can trigger a fear response in the LC. It can also “learn” to stop creating fear responses in what is called extinction learning. Which is a process where a person learns to stop fearing a trigger because the trigger is no longer associated with a bad outcome.
So, you can see where this is going. All of these regions need strong connectivity in order to function properly. When they don’t, thing like depression GAD, PTSD and OCD start to manifest. If you watched the video that I linked on the last ketamine blog you may recall the speaker saying that even one traumatic event can inhibit the release of BDNF and thus cause a decrease in the number of neuronal connections in the brain and start a cycle of increased anxiety, increased stress and fewer and fewer connections.
Intravenous ketamine infusions increase the levels of BDNF and grow new connections in the brain. Studies have demonstrated ketamine’s effectiveness in helping to manage the symptoms in all of the conditions that we have discussed as well as chronic pain. We believe that intravenous ketamine infusions will revolutionize the treatment of these disease and we are committed to helping persons suffering with these disorders get there lives back. We are committed to helping you get healthier starting on the inside.
Francis McClarnon CRNA, NP
If you don't have someone who can refer you for Intravenous ketamine infusions please contact us and we can help you find someone. It does not have to be a psychiatrist. It could be your primary care giver or whichever provider that is helping you manage your depressive disorder.
Here is that lecture again in case you haven’t watched it yet.
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