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Neuropharmacology

Switching into a dissociated state

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 24, page 60 (2023)Cite this article

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The cellular and circuit mechanisms that produce dissociated states — in which an individual’s internal experiences disconnect from the environment — are unclear. Now, Cichon et al. show that, in mice, ketamine-induced dissociated states are triggered by populations of active or silent cortical pyramidal neurons switching their activity state, a phenomenon that requires the suppression of parvalbumin (PV+) and somatostatin (SST+) interneurons and is mediated by inhibition of NMDA receptors and HCN channels.

First, the authors confirmed that mice given systemic subhypnotic ketamine entered a dissociative-like behavioural state and had awake-appearing EEGs with fast oscillations — a robust signature of human dissociative states. They then performed in vivo two-photon Ca2+ imaging in all layers of different cortical regions. This revealed that pyramidal neuron populations that were active and silent in the waking state switched to being silent and active, respectively, in the ketamine-induced dissociative state. Local ketamine administration in cortical regions also induced activity switching.

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  1. Nature Reviews Neuroscience http://www.nature.com/nrn/

    Jake Rogers

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  1. Jake Rogers
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Correspondence to Jake Rogers.

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Rogers, J. Switching into a dissociated state. Nat Rev Neurosci 24, 60 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-022-00671-9

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