Name: What ketamine is doing to Elon Musk’s brain
Uploaded: 2025-06-17T14:48:00.000Z
Duration: 6 min 30 s
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As gay guy, I know many dudes who have replaced alcohol with ketamine on the weekends in order to party.

Johnson and Johnson just approved a ketamine-derived nasal spray called Spravato to treat depression.

And some therapists are putting their patients into a K-hole in order to treat them.

And why are so many people taking it right now?

Ketamine, AKA special K, is sometimes referred to as a horse tranquilizer because, well, it is a horse tranquilizer.

In humans at high doses, ketamine is an anesthesia.

In fact, remember the 10-day ordeal of the 10 Thai boys and their soccer coach found alive stuck in the cave in Thailand?

Well, rescuers gave those boys ketamine to sedate and anesthetize them in order to get them out.

So many drugs will target one brain system, but ketamine is considered a dirty drug, which is a legit pharmacological term.

Dirty drugs target many systems in the brain at once.

For example, ketamine has an effect on the analgesic opiate receptors, similar to drugs like heroin and cocaine, but ketamine is less active on these neuronal areas compared to those other drugs.

Ketamine has an effect on the hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated channels in the brain, which can lead to its hypnotic effects.

But most notably, for future widespread use of ketamine, it affects the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in your brain along with the neurotransmitter glutamate.

Glutamate is a biochemical used in your brain to pass signals from one neuron to another through the synaptic cleft.

Glutamate is a neurochemical in your brain used for neurons to communicate with each other.

So without glutamate, your neurons can't communicate, and this is where ketamine comes in.

At high doses of ketamine, enough glutamate is blocked that parts of your brain are turned off.

It causes a rapid loss of consciousness appropriate for general anesthesia.

High doses of ketamine makes you lose consciousness.

Whereas at lower doses of ketamine, there's actually an increase in glutamate release.

This creates an out-of-body experience, altered sensory perception, and dissociative states.

It can lead you to feel intoxicated, lose your inhibitions.

It's why gay guys might be using it at the club to grind on each other to scissor.

But it's also ketamine's effect on NMDA receptors and glutamate that have made it a promising new drug to deal with severe depression.

Some people, I repeat, some people feel less depressed after taking doses of ketamine.

This is because it changes NMDA receptors in your brain, changes glutamate in your brain, and because of your brain's plasticity, your brain will actually morph.

When people are depressed, brain cells shrink and neuronal connections change.

Ketamine can get into the brain and can impact your NMDA receptors.

This can allow brain cells to change and trigger new connections.

Ketamine may help some depressed people's brains change how they think.

The relief can also happen fast, within 24 hours of a depressive episode.

If someone gets a sub-anesthetic dose of ketamine, they can feel the relief within a day.

Whereas more conventional antidepressants like serotonin reuptake inhibitors, those can take three to four months of use before you feel the relief.

This quick relief is why some doctors are really interested in how ketamine can deal with depressive episodes.

In one study I read, around half the patients saw a benefit from ketamine therapy, but about 8% had worse depression after taking ketamine.

Ketamine being a dirty drug affects many parts of your brain, so it's important for you to understand it might not be the right drug to help with depression.

Many people feel better after taking SSRIs.

It's up to you and your doctor to work together if you're depressed to understand if ketamine is something that could be beneficial to you.

But the fact that it could help is why Johnson & Johnson's making a nasal spray called Spravata that you might see people doing ketamine on the street in the future.

There's a variety of definitions of a K-hole, but one common thread is that you do so much ketamine that you can't move.

Five to 20 minutes after snorting ketamine, he's now consumed an amount that makes him feel high.

His blood pressure increases, his heart rate increases, he feels dissociative, intoxicated, he has changes in his auditory and visual perception, he feels buzzy, dreamlike, maybe he's a gay guy who finally feels chill.

This is when said gay guy decides he wants to take some more ketamine.

As you consume more ketamine, you start to feel confused, disoriented, nauseated, unable to feel pain.

And if you take too much, you enter a K-hole, which essentially means you have taken enough ketamine to anesthetize you.

Anesthetize, anesthetize, is that how you say it?

You've gone from increasing the glutamate to turning it off.

At this point, you may be unable to move.

It has less of an effect on your cardiac and lung function compared to like cocaine or heroin, but it can be fatal, especially when mixed with alcohol or other drugs, which when people are partying, this can happen.

Vivian, the drag queen, died recently of a potential ketamine overdose.

As well, ketamine use has been shown to impair your memory and cause cognitive issues.

As well, in rats, they would self-administer ketamine similar to the way they would cocaine due to its rewarding and reinforcing behaviors.

As well, the breakdown of ketamine in your body can actually impact your bladder and really mess up your urinary system.

Ketamine can lead to psychotic episodes and make you feel detached from your body and surroundings.

You can feel grandiose and like you have special powers or special talents.

They could do inadvisable things at work.

This quote is from a ketamine scientist in a New Yorker article about Elon Musk and how those around him are saying that he's actually doing way more ketamine than ever before in his life.

He's potentially dependent on ketamine right now, which may be why he's acting erratically.

Maybe the guy running America right now has his brain cooked on ketamine.

The point of this video is to educate you on a drug that's becoming popular and a lot of people are touting its positive effects.

If you are severely depressed, ketamine could be a mode of treatment.

But it's also a recreational party drug with a lot of serious risks.

So it's important that you stay informed and understand how it actually impacts your body.

Thanks so much for watching and learning about Special K with me.

We have a link to our podcast on ketamine where we talk a lot more openly about this drug.

Smash that like button and we'll see you soon for a new science video.

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What ketamine is doing to Elon Musk’s brain

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