Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • In Brief
  • Published:

Psychiatric disorders

GluN2B mediates ketamine's antidepressant effect

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 15, page 769 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

The cellular mechanisms underlying the rapid antidepressant effects of the NMDA receptor (NMDAR) antagonist ketamine are not well understood. Miller et al. showed that mice lacking the NMDAR subunit GluN2B from principal cortical neurons showed reduced despair-like behaviour and that ketamine had no antidepressant effects in these mice. Ketamine increased excitatory synaptic transmission in prefrontal cortex slices from control mice; this effect was mimicked in untreated slices lacking GluN2B, and ketamine had no additional effect on synaptic transmission in these slices. Furthermore, the authors showed that GluN2B-containing NMDARs are tonically activated by ambient glutamate, which could explain why the nonselective NMDAR antagonist ketamine seems to have a GluN2B-selective effect. These data indicate that a suppression of tonic GluN2B activation in cortical neurons could underlie the antidepressant effects of ketamine.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Miller, O. H. et al. GluN2B-containing NMDA receptors regulate depression-like behavior and are critical for the rapid antidepressant actions of ketamine. eLife http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.03581 (2014)

Download references

Authors
  1. Leonie Welberg
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Welberg, L. GluN2B mediates ketamine's antidepressant effect. Nat Rev Neurosci 15, 769 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3871

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3871

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing