Ketamine: pharmacology revisited

Ketamine, an old intravenous anesthetic, is a non-narcotic and non-barbiturate drug. It mainly works by non-competitive antagonist at the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. Ketamine has several properties of the ideal anesthetic agent. Therefore, its properties are interesting in various clinical settings, although it can produce the
psychological adverse effects. This present short review aims to describe the pharmacology of ketamine.