Behavioural pharmacologyOct 27, 2025

Ketamine and crocin affect anxiety, depression, memory, and pain in adolescent female rats

Psychedelic Science Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Dec 29, 2025

Abstract

Crocin may enhance the effects of ketamine on anxiety and depression in adolescent female Wistar rats.

Ketamine may cause increased anxiety and depression, along with memory and pain effects in adolescent female Wistar rats.
Body weight of the rats increased after 10 days of treatment, but differences between groups were not observed.
Crocin alone may produce antidepressant-like behavior in the rats.
When combined, crocin may enhance ketamine's pain-relieving and antidepressant effects while reducing its anxiety and memory impairment effects.
These findings suggest that crocin may modulate how ketamine affects anxiety and depression in adolescent female Wistar rats.

Simplified

Ketamine, a noncompetitive N-methyl- d -aspartate receptor antagonist, and crocin, the bioactive components of Crocus sativus L. , affect anxiety, depression, memory, and pain processes. It has not yet been clarified that crocin can potentiate the analgesic and antidepressant effects of ketamine, as well as attenuate the anxiogenic and amnesic impacts of ketamine in adolescent rodents. This study was designed to explain this issue in adolescent female Wistar rats. For this aim, elevated plus-maze, forced swim test, step-through, and tail-flick tests were utilized. The results indicated that the adolescent female Wistar rats' body weight increased across 10 days of drug treatment, but it did not differ between the groups. Pretreatment with ketamine [20 mg/kg, intraperitoneally (i.p.)] induced anxiogenic- and antidepressant-related behaviors, as well as amnesic and analgesic impacts in adolescent female Wistar rats. Furthermore, alone injection of crocin (30 mg/kg, i.p.) exerted an antidepressant-related behavior. When ketamine (20 mg/kg, i.p.) and crocin (30 mg/kg, i.p.) were coinjected, crocin could potentiate the analgesic and antidepressant effects of ketamine, as well as attenuate the anxiogenic and amnesic properties of ketamine in adolescent female Wistar rats. These results suggested that crocin causes a modulatory effect on ketamine's anxiogenic- and antidepressant-related behaviors, as well as amnesic and analgesic effects in adolescent female Wistar rats.

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

View Full Text ↗

Featured in

Psychedelic ScienceIssue #9

Saffron spice compound fixes ketamine's memory problems in teens

↗

Ketamine and crocin affect anxiety, depression, memory, and pain in adolescent female rats

Abstract

Full Text

Featured in

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the psychedelic science brief