Abstract: Ketamine is a non-selective N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) receptor antagonist. Ketamine plays a significant role in the treatment and research of neuropsychiatric diseases in recent years. The neural mechanism of ketamine psychogenic effects and reward pathway remains to be perfected, which may be closely related to a variety of neurons and pathways in the brain. This paper intends to review the relevant studies at home and abroad, and try to integrate the known neural mechanisms and put forward reasonable hypotheses.

Key words: ketamine, psychomimetic symptoms, reward, neural mechanism, drug dependence