Ketamine

Ketamine, approved in 2019 by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of depression, has been touted by scientists and media reports as something approaching a miracle cure. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series chronicles the ascent of a drug that has been around for fifty years-in previous incarnations, a Vietnam-era combat anaesthetic and a popular club drug-that has now been reinvented as a treatment for depression. Bita Moghaddam, a leading researcher in neuropharmacology, explains the scientific history and the biology of ketamine, its clinical use, and its recently discovered antidepressant effects, for the nonspecialist reader. Series Overview: ACCESSIBLE, CONCISE, BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED BOOKS ON TOPICS OF CURRENT INTEREST. Written by leading thinkers, this series delivers expert overviews of subjects that range from the cultural and the historical to the scientific and the technical. Synthesizing specialized subject matter for nonspecialists and engaging critical topics through fundamentals, each of these compact volumes offers readers a point of access to complex ideas.