Milan Scheidegger1,2, Simone Grimm3,4,
Alexander Fuchs5, Rainer Kraehenmann4, Heinz Boeker4,
Erich Seifritz4, Peter Boesiger5, Martin Walter6,
Anke Henning5
1Institute for Biomedical
Engineering, University & ETH Zurich, Zurich , Switzerland; 2Clinic
of Affective Disorders & General Psychiatry, Psychiatric University
Hospital Zurich, Zurich , Switzerland; 3Cluster Languages of
Emotion, Freie Universitt Berlin, Berlin, Germany; 4Clinic of
Affective Disorders & General Psychiatry, Psychiatric University Hospital
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; 5Institute for Biomedical
Engineering, University & ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; 6Clinical
Affective Neuroimaging Laboratory, Psychiatric University Hospital,
Magdeburg, Germany
Ketamine is a potent glutamatergic NMDA receptor antagonist with rapid antidepressant properties at subanaesthetic doses, thus providing a valuable research tool for the investigation of the neurobiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). This multimodal imaging study in 14 healthy subjects reveals the neuropharmacological effects of a single intravenous subanaesthetic ketamine infusion on fMRI-BOLD responses during an emotional processing task and their relationship to glutamatergic metabolite concentrations in the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (PACC) assessed by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) and indicates a close relationship between BOLD reactivity and glutamatergic metabolism after pharmacological stimulation.