• Bao Fu, Chengxi Liu, Yajun Zhang, Xiaoyun Fu, Lin Zhang, and Tian Yu.
• Department of Critical Care Medicine, Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical College, Zunyi, Guizhou, China.
• BMC Anesthesiol. 2017 Aug 23; 17 (1): 111.

BackgroundKetamine is a frequently used intravenous anesthetic, which can reversibly induce loss of consciousness (LOC). Previous studies have demonstrated that thalamocortical system is critical for information transmission and integration in the brain. The ventral posteromedial nucleus (VPM) is a critical component of thalamocortical system. Glutamate is an important excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain and may be involved in ketamine-induced LOC.MethodsThe study used whole-cell patch-clamp to observe the effect of ketamine (30 μM-1000 μM) on glutamatergic neurotransmission in VPM slices.ResultsKetamine significantly decreased the amplitude of glutamatergic spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents (sEPSCs), but only higher concentration of ketamine (300 μM and 1000 μM) suppressed the frequency of sEPSCs. Ketamine (100 μM-1000 μM) also decreased the amplitude of glutamatergic miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs), without altering the frequency.ConclusionsIn VPM neurons, ketamine attenuates the glutamatergic neurotransmission mainly through postsynaptic mechanism and action potential may be involved in the process.

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