Ketamine is a wide spectrum anesthetic, which in recent years has become an illegal substance in many countries due to drug abuse. However, while some scientists and medical professionals debate the legal use of the drug to treat depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, others have focused on the research of out-of-body experiences (OBE) as a side effect of the illicit drug. After all, the drug may hold the key to understanding the causes behind such experiences.
We recently talked about a study of brain rhythms that lead to an out-of-body experience in mice through the use of ketamine. In June 2020, a similar study by A. U. Nicol and A. J. Morton from the University of Cambridge, UK was published in the Scientific Reports journal. The article reported the findings of an experiment on sheep that were injected with the same substance.
Electroencephalography (EEG) results showed that after being injected with ketamine, high-frequency brain activity was recorded, whereas once the sedative effect subsided, the EEG was characterized by short periods of alternating low and high-frequency oscillations. It is probably this alternating phase that underlies the dissociative state, which explains the psychotropic effects of the drug observed in humans.
At the highest dose, 5 out of 6 sheep showed a complete cessation of cortical activity on the EEG within a few minutes, after which the activity of the cerebral cortex resumed. This phenomenon is likely to induce an out-of-body sensation that can be compared to a near-death experience. And although the chemical changes in the brain caused by ketamine are not yet fully understood, such studies provide new tools for the study of dissociation mechanisms, including OBE.
