Scientists create a helmet to study the effects of ketamine on the brain in humans

You’ve probably heard of ketamine, but don’t know what it is. This refers to a dissociative drug derived from phencyclidine, currently used in medicine to take advantage of its sedative, analgesic and anesthetic properties.

This is how ketamine can be applied in humans as a sedative prior to performing a minor operation, as well as a tranquilizer in animals.

However, outside the medical field, the consumption of this drug can cause hallucinations, as well as loss of the notion of time and reality, and can also experience memory problems in the short term.

It is in this instance that a study currently being conducted on ketamine seeks to test a new helmet-shaped neuroimaging device designed to record brain activity in real time.

Through this the researchers hope to verify the effects exerted by the consumption of ketamine on the functional connectivity of the brain throughout each of its phases.

To do this, the device supports its operation in an existing brain imaging technique that receives the name of functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which has a basic form called continuous wave fNIRS.

Also, there is an updated version called Time Domain (TD) fNIRSalthough this has the drawback of requiring large machines that are heavy and expensive to acquire.

It was this that drove the development of the Kernal Flowthe device used in the research, in order to make TD-fNIRS a more affordable, lightweight and easy-to-implement technology.

With the device ready to go into operation Bryan Johnsonthe CEO involved in the project, volunteered to run the tests.

However, the preliminary published data did not offer a definitive conclusion, but simply showed how effective Kernal Flow is at doing its job.

In this way it was possible to have a record of Johnson’s brain activity during 5 days prior to administer ketamine and 5 days later to do this.

The preliminary results obtained were similar to those carried out in past studies with more expensive neuroimaging systems.

The researchers hope to be able to perform more tests on a total of 15 subjectsso that they can publish the results at the end of this year.