How Does Ketamine Affect the Brain?

What Is Ketamine?

Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic medication with dissociative effects. It is used to reduce pain and help patients tolerate surgery, emergency procedures, and other medical interventions.

Ketamine can provide analgesia, meaning pain relief, and amnesia, meaning reduced memory of an event. In medical settings, it is given with professional monitoring because it can affect awareness, movement, blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, and mental state.

Ketamine was first synthesized in the 1960s and approved by the Food and Drug Administration for clinical use in the United States in 1970. In medical care, it is commonly given intravenously or intramuscularly, meaning through a vein or muscle.

Ketamine is a Schedule III controlled substance. This means it has accepted medical uses but also carries a risk of misuse, dependence, and addiction.

How Ketamine Changes Brain Activity

Ketamine mainly affects the glutamate system. Glutamate is one of the brain’s major chemical messengers and plays a role in learning, memory, pain processing, mood regulation, and communication between neurons.

Ketamine acts on N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors, also called NMDA receptors. These receptors help control how nerve cells respond to glutamate. By changing NMDA receptor activity, ketamine can alter pain perception, sensory processing, memory, and emotional response.

At higher doses, ketamine can disrupt how the brain combines sensory information. Sights, sounds, body awareness, time, and surroundings may feel distorted. This can lead to dissociation, hallucinations, and out-of-body experiences.

At medically supervised doses, ketamine may affect glutamate activity in ways that support new or strengthened connections between nerve cells. This may help explain why some people with treatment-resistant depression experience faster symptom relief than they would with many traditional antidepressants.

What Are the Side Effects of Ketamine Abuse?

When used recreationally, ketamine can be extremely dangerous. Abusing ketamine puts you at risk of what is known as a ‘k-hole,’ which is when users feel detached from reality and experience intense hallucinations. This can be an incredibly frightening experience.

Some of the side effects associated with ketamine abuse include:

• Feeling in a dreamlike and out-of-body state
• Hallucinations
• Sedation and drowsiness
• Confusion, disorientation, and trouble focusing and thinking
• Amnesia and forgetfulness
• Decreased coordination and awareness of the environment
• Feeling strong and powerful
• Anxiety and irritability
• Dissociation
• Reduced feelings of pain

Some of the physical side effects include:

• Slowed breathing
• Nausea and vomiting
• Increased blood pressure
• Decreased heart rate
• Irregular heartbeat
• Increased heart rate (at low doses)
• Double vision
• Seizures
• Problems with verbal fluency
• Lightheadedness

Using ketamine illegally can also result in chest pain, shaking, flashbacks, psychosis, and paranoia.

Ketamine Abuse and Alcohol

Mixing ketamine with alcohol can be fatal. Combining both substances can lead to a toxic effect as some of their similar effects become synergized. It can also increase the chance of coma, slowed breathing, memory loss, and death.

Abusing ketamine can also lead to irreversible and lasting damage to the bladder, resulting in urinary tract issues. This risk is amplified if ketamine and alcohol are used simultaneously.

If you or a loved one mix alcohol and ketamine, dual diagnosis treatment must be sought via a rehab center, such as our own.

When Ketamine Use Becomes Addiction

Ketamine addiction can develop when a person continues using the drug despite harm to their health, relationships, work, school, or daily life. The risk may increase when ketamine is used to escape stress, numb emotions, manage depression, or disconnect from painful experiences.

Signs of ketamine addiction may include:

• Cravings
• Repeated use despite negative consequences
• Needing more ketamine to feel the same effect
• Failed attempts to stop or cut back
• Spending significant time getting, using, or recovering from ketamine
• Neglecting responsibilities because of ketamine use

Treatment can help people stop using ketamine and address the factors that keep addiction active. Care may include medical assessment, therapy, relapse prevention, dual diagnosis treatment, family support, and continuing care planning.