Citation

Carreno FR, Donegan JJ, Boley AM, Shah A, DeGuzman M, Frazer A, Lodge DJ. Mol. Psychiatry 2016; 21(9): 1298-1308.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

A single sub-anesthetic dose of ketamine exerts rapid and sustained antidepressant effects. Here, we examined the role of the ventral hippocampus (vHipp)-medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) pathway in ketamine/'s antidepressant response. Inactivation of the vHipp with lidocaine prevented the sustained, but not acute, antidepressant-like effect of ketamine as measured by the forced swim test (FST). Moreover, optogenetic as well as pharmacogenetic specific activation of the vHipp-mPFC pathway using DREADDs (designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs) mimicked the antidepressant-like response to ketamine; importantly, this was pathway specific, in that activation of a vHipp to nucleus accumbens circuit did not do this. Furthermore, optogenetic inactivation of the vHipp/mPFC pathway at the time of FST completely reversed ketamine/'s antidepressant response. In addition, we found that a transient increase in TrkB receptor phosphorylation in the vHipp contributes to ketamine/'s sustained antidepressant response. These data demonstrate that activity in the vHipp-mPFC pathway is both necessary and sufficient for the antidepressant-like effect of ketamine.

Language: en