BBC News:研究发现:克他命有治疗抑郁的效果
Ketamine is a horse tranquilizer but also a popular but illegal recreational drug on the club scene. Now researchers in the English National Health Service say it could be a dramatic new treatment for depression. They've conducted a small trial. A mother of a 32-year old woman who’s part of that trial said the drug had had an immediate effect on her daughter.
克他命是一种马安定剂，也是在娱乐场合受欢迎的违法消遣性药物。如今，英国国民健康服务研究人员称，克他命可能成为对抗抑郁的新武器。他们做了一项小型的试验。一位32岁的试验参与者，据她的母亲说，这种药物在她女儿身上有立竿见影的效果。
“After she’s had the treatment, she’s already feeling better before we leave the hospital. It works that quickly. And she sort of got a lot more confidence in herself when she had the treatment. She is chatty and she’ll talk to people. She is not first withdrawn as she would normally be. And she can concentrate better and after one lot of the treatment, she went out for a walk on her own the day after which she’s not done, or probably in last ten years.”
“接受治疗后，没等我们离开医院，她就感觉好多了。就是这么快。用药后她似乎对自己更有信心了，变得健谈了，也愿意跟别人说话。不像之前，一直沉默寡言。一个疗程后，她的注意力能更好地集中在一件事上。第二天，她自己就出去散步了，这可能是10年来的第一次。”
How exactly does Ketamine work?
克他命的作用原理是怎样的呢?
Over the past 20 years, we found that most anti-depressants, while they may act on other receptors and other transmitters in the brain, they also seem to have some effect on this receptor, the MDA receptor. And people in the 1990s thought why don’t we just go straight to that receptor? So what we see now really is the results of the number of trials that have been done with Ketamine in depression over the past 10 or 15 years. And the report today actually describes the outcomes for people that were treated. So this is really the first time we've seen results from standard use of medicine if you like, rather than a controlled clinical trial.
近20年来，我们发现，大多数抗抑郁剂在作用到其他大脑受体和神经递质的同时，也似乎对MDA受体产生影响。因此，上世纪90 年代，人们就想，为什么不让药物直接作用到该受体?所以，在过去10到15年中，人们用克他命做试验，才得到今天的结果。试验报告描述的其实是人们接受治 疗后的状况。这是第一次通过规范用药得到的结果，而不是通过临床对照试验。
Many people will be familiar with Ketamine from its reputation in the club scene as being are creational and sometimes very dangerous drug as well as hearing about its use in veterinary medicine. How does the use differ in the clinical setting?
克他命对于许多人来说不陌生，是因为它是娱乐场所常见的消遣性药品，具有一定危险性。兽医也经常用到克他命。临床环境不同，克他命的使用有什么不同呢?
Well, Ketamine does a lot of very different things. So, for example, it’s licensed as anintravenous agent to induce sleep in children. In veterinary medicine, it’s used as a pain reliever. And also it’s used illicitly. Now the doses and the weight given vary dramatically. So generally, recreational use is very very high doses. And that’s often snorted into the nose. In depression, we use in pretty low doses, which sometimes but not always, give rise to a few adverse effect, but not often.
克他命用处很多。例如，它是法律许可的儿童催眠静脉注射剂。在兽医学上，它是镇痛药。当然，克他命也经常被非法使用。使用剂量 根据具体情况而定。一般来说，作为消遣性药品使用时，剂量非常大，通常经由鼻子摄入体内。在治疗抑郁时，我们的用量是很少的，该药品虽然偶尔会有些副作 用，但这样的情况不常见。
