European neuropsychopharmacology : the journal of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology
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Eur Neuropsychopharmacol · Apr 2019
Clinical TrialFunctional connectivity between prefrontal cortex and subgenual cingulate predicts antidepressant effects of ketamine.
Converging evidence suggests that a single sub-anesthetic dose of ketamine can produce strong and rapid antidepressant effects in patients that do not respond to standard treatment. Despite a considerable amount of research investigating ketamine's mechanisms of action, the exact neuronal targets conveying the antidepressant effects have not been identified yet. Preclinical studies suggest that molecular changes induced by ketamine bring forward large-scale network reconfigurations that might relate to ketamine's antidepressant properties. ⋯ Our results show that FC increases after ketamine between right lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) are positively linked to treatment response. Furthermore, low baseline FC between these regions predicts treatment outcome. We conclude that PFC-sgACC connectivity may represent a promising biomarker with both predictive and explanatory power.