Antidepressant drug effective in treating 'lazy eye' in adults

Date:
September 30, 2020
Source:
University of California - Irvine
Summary:
Researchers reveal how subanesthetic ketamine, which is used for
pain management and as an antidepressant in humans, is effective
in treating adult amblyopia, a brain disorder commonly known as
'lazy eye.'


FULL STORY ==========================================================================
In a new study, published in Current Biology, researchers from
the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine reveal how subanesthetic ketamine, which is used for pain management and as an antidepressant in humans, is effective in treating adult amblyopia,
a brain disorder commonly known as "lazy eye."

==========================================================================
"Our study, demonstrates how a single-dose of subanesthetic ketamine reactivates adult visual cortical plasticity and promotes functional
recovery of visual acuity defects resulting from amblyopia," explained
Xiangmin Xu, PhD, a professor of anatomy and neurobiology and director
of the Center for Neural Circuit Mapping at the UCI School of Medicine.

Subanesthetic ketamine, commonly used to treat depression and pain, evokes rapid and long-lasting antidepressant effects in human patients. There was evidence that ketamine may control how the nervous system makes structural changes in response to internal and external demands, a process called
neural plasticity. But, how the drug worked remained elusive, until now.

"Our research team showed that ketamine down-regulates NRG1 expression
in PV inhibitory cells, resulting in sustained cortical disinhibition
to enhance cortical plasticity in adult visual cortex," said Steven
F. Grieco, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in the Xu lab and lead author.

"Through this neural plasticity-based mechanism, ketamine mediated
functional recovery from adult amblyopia." Xin Qiao, PhD, a postdoctoral
staff in the Xu lab is a co-first author for the published paper.

Amblyopia is a vision disorder in which the brain fails to process
inputs from one eye, favoring the other eye. The condition can result
in decreased vision in the affected eye. Each year, between one and five percent of children worldwide, are diagnosed with this condition.

Fast and sustained ketamine actions show promise for therapeutic
applications that rely on reactivating adult cortical plasticity. Further testing is needed to determine the full implications of this discovery.

This study was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes
of Health.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_Irvine. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Steven F. Grieco, Xin Qiao, Xiaoting Zheng, Yongjun Liu, Lujia
Chen, Hai
Zhang, Zhaoxia Yu, Jeffrey P. Gavornik, Cary Lai, Sunil P. Gandhi,
Todd C. Holmes, Xiangmin Xu. Subanesthetic Ketamine Reactivates
Adult Cortical Plasticity to Restore Vision from Amblyopia. Current
Biology, 2020; 30 (18): 3591 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.07.008 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200930144411.htm

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