J. Neurosci. 28, 6295–6303 (2008) doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0910-08.2008

Scientists have found a way of predicting how an individual will respond to the party drug ketamine — and it might help us understand why symptoms of schizophrenia vary so much between individuals.

Ketamine mimics many symptoms of schizophrenia. Paul Fletcher at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues scanned the brains of 15 healthy volunteers while they performed various cognitive tasks that require skills that are often disrupted in schizophrenia, such as verbal processing and working memory.

They found, among other things, that those with higher activity in frontal, thalamic and caudate regions of the brain during a working memory task tended to become apathetic and withdrawn on ketamine. Meanwhile, those with exaggerated frontal and temporal activation responses during verbal tasks experienced disordered thoughts and abnormal auditory perception.