KETAMINE’S EFFECT ON SINGLE-UNIT ACTIVITY IN THE STRIATUM

Abstract

Ketamine is a commonly used anesthetic; however, when administered at low-dose subanesthetic levels, ketamine has been shown to relieve chronic pain and treatment-resistant depression. Recent studies have shown that sub-anesthetic doses of ketamine reduce L-DOPAinduced dyskinesia (LID), an impairment of voluntary movement, in rodent models of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and in human patients. As an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NDMA) receptor antagonist, we can predict ketamine’s effects on the brain by already knowing how NMDA receptors function. Recent data from our previous experiments show how ketamine alters brain oscillations, inducing sustained high-frequency oscillations in regions such as the dorsolateral striatum. Knowing that ketamine alters oscillatory brain activity we further investigated how it affected single-unit activity in these regions. Single-unit recording measures activity of a single neuron in a desired area of the brain by measuring the rate of change in voltage during an action potential. Here we investigated how repeated exposure to ketamine alters the single-unit activity in the striatum. Results show that the isolated cells respond in a variety of ways to ketamine, some being inhibited while others were excited. Further analysis looked at variance, spiking patterns, and waveform shape to further understand ketamine’s effect on neural activity.