If you’ve heard of ketamine, it’s probably for its history of abuse as a club drug. But it could also be one of the biggest breakthroughs in treating severe depression in years.

How can one drug hold such promise and peril? The answer lies in how it affects your brain.

Ketamine works like a flash mob, temporarily taking over a certain chemical “receptor.” In some cases and with expert medical care, that can be a good thing. But cross that line, and it’s big trouble.

Your doctor probably won’t give it to you as an antidepressant yet. Scientists are still testing it for that. But if ketamine does bring people back from the depths of depression, it might be the last thing you expect from a drug that can knock you out.

Ketamines for Depression

Ketamine got its start as an anesthesia medicine in the 1960s. It was used on the battlefields of the Vietnam War.

At lower doses, it can help ease pain. Ketamine helps sedatives work and may help people need fewer addictive painkillers, like morphine after surgery or while caring for burns.

When misused, ketamine can change your sense of sight and sound. You can have hallucinations and feel out of touch with your surroundings -- and even from yourself. It can make it hard to speak or move, and it’s been abused as a date-rape drug.

“Outside of the clinic, ketamine can cause tragedies, but in the right hands, it is a miracle,” says John Abenstein, MD, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

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