Ketamine has been used to induce loss of consciousness for general anesthesia for decades. Recently, this medicine has been used as a second-line treatment in clinical trials and research to treat depression, which has sparked controversy. It is not hard to find news about addiction and misuse, or even death when you search for ketamine. Moreover, this drug is not approved by the FDA to treat depression. Despite its bad reputation, ketamine is a promising medication for depression and an impactful chemical for psychological disorder research.

Let’s first explore the reasons why ketamine can be a good alternative for standard treatment when those common medications do not help alleviate depression. The current antidepressants act to increase the level of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine neurotransmitters in the brain to make patients feel happier. As a new researcher myself, I consider this method ineffective. By enhancing the happy mood to treat depressed patients, researchers and doctors assume that depression is a mood disorder, and patients are simply unhappy. In reality, the causes of depression are much more complicated. A major one involves the alteration of synapses’ size and activity which then affects the connection between neurons. Therefore, in an attempt to treat depression, medicine should aim to fix the changes in how neurons communicate. Through many years of research on cell culture and rodent models, scientists found that ketamine enhances the activity at glutaminergic synapses and increases synaptic sizes, which are heavily reduced in depression. In short, ketamine reverses some of the known physiological alterations. Ketamine treatment has shown success in reducing symptoms of depression in many clinical trials. A patient is eligible if common antidepressants have proven ineffective. Patients are treated with low doses of ketamine along with cognitive behavior training under strict treatment plans with research physicians. 

Despite the promising results, ketamine should not be approved for general depression treatment. Research on ketamine is limited. Scientists have focused on the effects on the damaged parts of the brain (cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, etc.), but they have not explored the consequences of long-term ketamine usage on the brain as a whole. Ketamine is also highly addictive, leading to a potential long-term struggle for patients who are already mentally ill. We should think of the success of ketamine treatment as the groundwork to develop new medications that target the same neurotransmitter (glutamate) but without the addictive effects and other unknown consequences on the brain. Hopefully, a new medicine might offer a better first-line treatment for depression compared to the current antidepressants on the market. 

In recent decades, the importance of mental health and taking care of the intangibles has become a major point of focus for schools at all levels in the United States’ education system. Across the country, a wide range of social and institutional factors serve as stressors for young people. The current statistical rate for symptoms of depression found in adults age 18-29 is approximately 21% according to the CDC;  suicide is the third leading cause of death in young adults and  college athletes.  

The Sport Science Institute, in partnership with the NCAA, set out to create a survey that would gauge the mental health of athletes. In the study, 65% of women’s sports athletes and 58% of men’s sports athletes reported that mental health was a serious concern among their teammates. In fact, constant mental exhaustion was the most commonly reported concern among the student-athletes with the symptom impacting 38% of women’s sports athletes and 22% of men’s sports athletes. However, only 49% of women’s sports athletes and 55% of men’s sports athletes reported that they felt mental health was taken seriously by their college or university’s athletics department. Overall, the data shows a gap in the attention that the mental health of college students needs. 

Improving mental health is no doubt a difficult problem to tackle as there isn’t exactly one true solution. The problem could lie in the balance between the physical and mental demand of a sport on top of academic and social commitments; however, many student-athletes rely on academic and sports scholarships with little room to breathe. Some college organizations emphasize creating more educational resources for college students regarding mental health, as well as  having therapists on standby, but that raises questions about funding.

Researchers Sabrina Weigland, Jared Cohen and Daniel Merenstein attempt to explain one potential cause: collegiate athletes tend to feel a loss of personality once their time being on the field comes to an end because they have spent the majority of their lives as an “athlete.” In layman’s terms, this can be related to the idea of how coaches can subconsciously instill that the majority of an athlete’s focus and time should be towards their respective sport, and not so much of a balance of other academic and social commitment. 

At one institution, Trine University uses a variety of academic reports to explain the importance of the topic at hand in their article, “Prioritizing Mental Health in College Athletes,” stating that “This idea has created a culture that values athletic performance over things like academic success or mental health. Today, a coach’s success is determined solely by the performance of their athletes, regardless of their relationship with the athlete or the athlete’s well-being.”

Overall, students at any college deserve to have help in any form for the anxiety that the world may bring on each day. For students involved in  time-consuming extracurriculars, avoid the overemphasis on perfection that will inevitably sacrifice your mental health. As Bobby McFerrin once said, “Don’t worry, be happy.”