Ketamine Can be Excellent for Depression. But Tinnitus?

hand reaching skyward for help; can ketamine treat tinnitus concept

The New York State Psychiatric Institute has been conducting a study, expected to be finished in 2025, testing the effect of ketamine on tinnitus. The human trial is based on previous studies that found "ketamine, which an antagonist at the NMDA receptor, increases GABA levels in the brain in participants with depression."

Researchers theorize that many people with tinnitus also suffer from depression and anxiety. Since ketamine is known to reduce depression, which condition can unmask the symptoms of tinnitus, then perhaps relieving depression with ketamine can lessen the perception of tinnitus.

The study's principal investigator, Diana Martinez, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, puts it this way:

For many, tinnitus has an important affective component to it, with distress and co-morbid symptoms of depression and anxiety. The onset and severity of tinnitus can correlate with stressful events, and it has been posited that stress lowers the threshold of perception, and unmasks tinnitus. Tinnitus then triggers more anxiety and depressed mood, which in turn reinforces the symptoms. An advantage of ketamine may be its effect on depression and anxiety, in addition to tinnitus, to interrupt this cycle.

She adds that "the goal of this study is to perform a proof-of-concept preliminary study of ketamine in tinnitus associated with sensori-neural hearing loss. This will be studied both in participants who report depressed mood and anxiety and those who do not. MRS imaging will be used to assess ketamine-induced changes in GABA in the auditory cortex."

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