Ketamine in Bipolar Disorder: A Review

Abstract

Alina Wilkowska, Łukasz Szałach, Wiesław J Cubała Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, PolandCorrespondence: Alina WilkowskaDepartment of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, Dębinki 7 Str, Gdańsk 80-211, PolandTel + 48 58 349 26 50Fax + 48 349 27 48Email [email protected]: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a psychiatric illness associated with high morbidity, mortality and suicide rate. It has neuroprogressive course and a high rate of treatment resistance. Hence, there is an unquestionable need for new BD treatment strategies. Ketamine appears to have rapid antidepressive and antisuicidal effects. Since most of the available studies concern unipolar depression, here we present a novel insight arguing that ketamine might be a promising treatment for bipolar disorder.Keywords: ketamine, bipolar disorder, staging, neuroprogression, treatment resistance

Keywords

• ketamine
• bipolar disorder
• staging
• neuroprogression
• treatment resistance.