No Cover Image

Journal article 1909 views

The incidence of unpleasant dreams after sub-anaesthetic ketamine

Mark Blagrove Orcid Logo, Celia J. A Morgan, H. Valerie Curran, Leslie Bromley, Brigitte Brandner

Psychopharmacology, Volume: 203, Issue: 1, Pages: 109 - 120

Swansea University Author: Mark Blagrove Orcid Logo

Full text not available from this repository: check for access using links below.

Abstract

Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)receptor antagonist with psychotogenic effects and for whichthere are diverse reports of whether pleasant or unpleasantdreams result during anaesthesia, post-operatively or aftersub-anaesthetic use. The aim was to assess in healthy volunteers the incidence o...

Full description

Published in: Psychopharmacology
ISSN: 0033-3158 1432-2072
Published: 2009
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa9003
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Abstract: Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)receptor antagonist with psychotogenic effects and for whichthere are diverse reports of whether pleasant or unpleasantdreams result during anaesthesia, post-operatively or aftersub-anaesthetic use. The aim was to assess in healthy volunteers the incidence ofunpleasant dreams over the three nights after receiving asub-anaesthetic dose of ketamine, in comparison to placebo,and with retrospective home nightmare frequency as acovariate.Thirty healthy volunteers completed questionnairesabout retrospective home dream recall and were then giveneither ketamine or placebo. Ketamine resulted in significantly more meandream unpleasantness relative to placebo and caused athreefold increase in the odds ratio for the incidence of anunpleasant dream. The number of dreams reported over thethree nights did not differ between the groups. Theincidence of unpleasant dreams after ketamine use waspredicted by retrospectively assessed nightmare frequencyat home.Ketamine causes unpleasant dreams over thethree post-administration nights. This may be evidence of aresidual psychotogenic effect that is not found on standardself-report symptomatology measures or a result of disturbedsleep electrophysiology. The results have theoretical implications for the relationship between nightmares and schizotypy.
College: Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Issue: 1
Start Page: 109
End Page: 120