Andrew Huberman· PhD
ketamine induced release of bdnf is one of the core mechanisms by which ketamine can relieve depression now there are several lines of evidence to support what I just said about bdnf in the context of ketamine first of all in mice that lack bdnf they have no bdnf they can't make bdnf because they don't have the gene for bdnf we call those bdnf knockout mice in those mice if you give them ketamine and you put them into that learned helplessness task that we talked about a bit earlier where you put them into water and see how long they swim normally ketamine would allow a mouse to swim longer to fight for its life longer well it no longer does that in a bdnf knockout Mouse