Todd D. Gould of the University of Maryland and his team aroused curiosity by coincidence with interesting research. Noting that lab rats are more stressed when they smell male humans, the team said they think this affects the results of the experiment. It was also emphasized that all experiments involving laboratory mice in the past should be reviewed.
The gender of the researcher influences the experiment result
The Research Team reported in the Aug. 30 Nature Neuroscience article that the gender of researchers working on rats did indeed affect outcomes involving ketamine treatment, and that the scent of human males triggered a hormone release in the brains of the mice that made the drug work as an antidepressant.
Our findings in mice suggests that activating a specific stress circuit in the brain may be a way to improve ketamine treatment.Our thought is that you may be able to provide a more robust antidepressant effect if you combine the ketamine with activation of this brain region, either a drug that spurs this process in the brain or even some sort of specific stressor.
-Todd D. Gould
References
[1] Georgiou, Polymnia, et al. “Experimenters’ Sex Modulates Mouse Behaviors and Neural Responses to Ketamine via Corticotropin Releasing Factor.” Nature Neuroscience, vol. 25, no. 9, Aug. 2022, pp. 1191–200, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-022-01146-x.
[2] Highland, Jaclyn N. “Sex-Dependent Metabolism of Ketamine and (2R,6R)-Hydroxynorketamine in Mice and Humans – Jaclyn N Highland, Cristan a Farmer, Panos Zanos, Jacqueline Lovett, Carlos a Zarate, Ruin Moaddel, Todd D Gould, 2022.” Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2022, journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02698811211064922.
