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BDNF is a protein that allows the brain to reorganize and adapt as a person ages.

Healthy habits—such as eating better, exercising, and sleeping well—boost BDNF.

Ketamine increases BDNF, which has been shown to strengthen neuronal connections.

Over the past several decades, we’ve learned more about neuroplasticity, which is the intrinsic property of the brain that allows it to adapt and reorganize itself. Neuroplasticity allows an aging brain to make the adaptive changes needed to maintain cognitive functioning and resilience. One particular brain protein, BDNF, plays an important role in neuroplasticity—and boosting it can help improve our brain’s health and stave off cognitive decline. Anyone can do that by making some changes to their daily habits, but there’s another way to increase BDNF: ketamine.

BDNF, or brain-derived neurotropic factor, not only helps brain cells grow, but also helps with synaptogenesis (extending the branches of neurons, which can improve connectivity and efficiency of neuronal signaling). BDNF also supports neurogenesis, or the birth of new neurons. BDNF is especially important in neurogenesis in the hippocampus, which is the seat of our ability to learn and remember new things. As neural networks reorganize over time, supported by the interaction of experience and neuroplasticity, the brain can develop greater emotional regulation, creativity, pattern recognition, and what we describe as wisdom.

Healthier Aging for Your Brain

It's a bit of a paradox, then, that the BDNF that helps support resilience in aging naturally decreases as we age. Luckily, there are ways to boost BDNF—not to reverse aging, of course, but to take advantage of its power to protect cognition. Even better, the keys to boosting BDNF lie in some simple, everyday habits. All of these can increase circulating levels of BDNF despite its natural reduction as we age (Walsh et al., 2018):

Meditation and stress reduction

Adhering to a healthy diet

There’s one relatively new psychiatric-based intervention that helps some people increase neuroplasticity. That’s ketamine, a molecule that’s long been used as a safe and effective anesthetic in operating rooms, and—more recently, in lower doses—as an anti-depressant that naturally increases neuroplasticity. Ketamine doesn't directly build wisdom, but it nurtures it by increasing BDNF, which strengthens and reorganizes neuronal connections.

How Does Ketamine Work?

Subanesthetic ketamine doesn’t put you to sleep, but it induces an altered state of consciousness that can make the brain more adaptable and can reduce rigid negative thought patterns. By relieving depression and anxiety, ketamine creates neuronal and emotional pathways that allow us to engage with life more fully. It actually opens up the ability to reflect more openly on our experiences of the past. Many individuals who have been administered a subanesthetic dose of ketamine have reported greater self-insight and self-awareness. Due to neuroplastic-inducing properties, ketamine has the potential to help with not only emotional functioning and aging, but also cognitive functioning. By allowing the enhancement of emotional and cognitive functioning, which can facilitate daily engagement, the quality we call wisdom has the potential to grow.

Ketamine has not only neuroplastic effects but also neuroprotective effects, which contribute to its safety profile as an anesthetic in the operating room. It is commonly used in medical settings because it tends to preserve breathing and airway reflexes and often maintains or increases blood pressure, making it useful in patients where other anesthetics might cause instability. (That makes ketamine an especially good choice of anesthesia for older adults undergoing surgery.) In subanesthetic doses, ketamine is safe to use for mental health conditions, with a few caveats:

Ketamine should only be used under the direction of a physician and administered under monitoring from clinical professionals experienced in the use of ketamine.

Older adults with certain cardiovascular conditions may not be good candidates for ketamine; be sure to work with a physician who understands your complete medical history.

Ketamine should not be used together with other medicines that have a sedative effect.

Ideally, ketamine is used in conjunction with a type of psychological treatment in order to target psychological understandings, especially factors that might have traditionally impacted engagement and self-agency.

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Neuroplasticity as You Age

Importantly, as you age, don’t be quick to assume aging means a loss of creativity or innovation. There are numerous inspiring examples of older folks who found their way to creativity and wisdom as they aged, with their biggest contributions and innovations coming after the age of 65. Think about Frank Lloyd Wright, who created some of his most iconic designs after age 70; Grandma Moses, who didn’t even start painting until she was 78; Peter Roget, who was 73 when he published Roget’s Thesaurus; Laura Ingalls Wilder, who published her Little House on the Prairie books between the ages of 65 and 76; and Colonel Sanders, who founded Kentucky Fried Chicken at 65. While these individuals might not have used ketamine to build their BDNF, they each had transformative experiences later in life that contributed to a broadening of perspective and openness to possibility that ketamine confers through its neuroplastic effects on consciousness.

You, too, by engaging your inner knowledge and ongoing experiences, can support neuroplasticity, partly through increasing BDNF and allowing creativity and innovation to continue or even begin at any age.

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Walsh JJ, Tschakovsky ME. Exercise and circulating BDNF: Mechanisms of release and implications for the design of exercise interventions. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2018 Nov;43(11):1095-1104. doi: 10.1139/apnm-2018-0192. Epub 2018 May 18. PMID: 29775542.

Sanaeifar F, Pourranjbar S, Pourranjbar M, Ramezani S, Mehr SR, Wadan AS, Khazeifard F. “Beneficial effects of physical exercise on cognitive-behavioral impairments and brain-derived neurotrophic factor alteration in the limbic system induced by neurodegeneration.” Exp Gerontol. 2024 Oct 1;195:112539. doi: 10.1016/j.exger.2024.112539. Epub 2024 Aug 8. PMID: 39116955.

Li L, Vlisides PE. “Ketamine: 50 Years of Modulating the Mind.” Front Hum Neurosci. 2016 Nov 29;10:612. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00612. PMID: 27965560; PMCID: PMC5126726.

Wu H, Savalia NK, Kwan AC. “Ketamine for a Boost of Neural Plasticity: How, but Also When?” Biol Psychiatry. 2021 Jun 1;89(11):1030-1032. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.03.014. PMID: 34016377; PMCID: PMC8190578.

Kohtala S. “Ketamine-50 years in use: from anesthesia to rapid antidepressant effects and neurobiological mechanisms.” Pharmacol Rep. 2021 Apr;73(2):323-345. doi: 10.1007/s43440-021-00232-4. Epub 2021 Feb 20. PMID: 33609274; PMCID: PMC7994242.

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