A novel sigma-1 receptor PET radioligand as a probe of ketamine’s rapid therapeutic action in disorders of human brain and behavior: Pilot study

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are among the top-ten leading causes of disability worldwide, but standard medications provide only minimal relief. Ketamine, perhaps best known as an anesthetic, could treat symptoms of MDD and OCD within hours, and, coincidentally, it is also a powerful dissociative, a class of hallucinogenic drugs. Interestingly, the degree of dissociation strongly predicts a more robust clinical response. This interdisciplinary collaboration across psychiatry and radiology will develop and validate a new method to study the mechanisms underlying ketamine’s biochemical action and its effects on dissociation and treatment effectiveness.