Transiently increased glutamate cycling in rat PFC is associated with rapid onset of antidepressant-like effects

Several drugs have recently been reported to induce rapid antidepressant effects in clinical trials and rodent models. Although the cellular mechanisms involved remain unclear, reports suggest that increased glutamate transmission contributes to these effects. Here, we demonstrate that the antidepressant-like efficacy of three unique drugs, with reported rapid onset antidepressant properties, is coupled with a rapid transient rise in glutamate cycling in medial prefronal cortex (mPFC) of awake rats as measured by ex vivo (1)H-[(13)C]-nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Rats were acutely pre-treated by intraperitoneal injection with a single dose of ketamine (1,3,10,30,80mg/kg), Ro 25-6981 (1,3,10mg/kg), scopolamine (5,25,100μg/kg) or vehicle (controls). At fixed times after drug injection animals received an intravenous infusion of [1,6-(13)C(2)]glucose for 8 min to enrich brain amino acid pools with (13)C, followed by rapid euthanasia. The mPFC was dissected, extracted with ethanol and metabolite (13)C enrichments measured. We found a clear dose dependent effect of ketamine and Ro 25-6981 on behavior and the percent of (13)C-enrichment of glutamate, glutamine and GABA. Further, we also found an effect of scopolamine on both cycling and behavior. These studies demonstrate that three pharmacologically distinct classes of drugs, clinically related through their reported rapid antidepressant actions, share the common ability to rapidly stimulate glutamate cycling at doses pertinent for their antidepressant-like efficacy. We conclude that increased cycling precedes the antidepressant action at behaviorally effective doses and suggests the rapid change in cycling could be used to predict efficacy of novel agents or identify doses with antidepressant activity.