Ketamine in Veterans With Gulf War Illness
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT04712071. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
Effects of a Single Dose of Intravenous Ketamine on Symptoms of Gulf War Illness in 1990-1991 Gulf War Veterans
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Up to one third of the 700,000 U.S. military veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf War have Gulf War Illness (GWI), a symptom complex characterized by a combination of chronic pain, cognitive impairment, debilitating fatigue, gastrointestinal complications, and other persistent symptoms. Epidemiologic studies of 1990-1991 Gulf War veterans have identified the short but intense combined exposure to insecticides (e.g., organophosphates, DEET, permethrin), pills with anti-nerve gas agent pyridostigmine bromide (PB), and low-level chemical nerve agents as likely candidates of GWI. Animal models have shown that these neurotoxicants could induce neuroinflammation which is marked by enhanced inflammatory cytokines, and activated microglia and astrocytes. Inflammation has been linked to GWI. Secondary effects of neuroinflammation and glia activation could be excessive glutamate-mediated neuronal activation. There is currently no treatment for symptoms of GWI. Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist. Besides blocking activation of NMDARs, a sub-anesthetic dose (0.5 mg/kg over 40 minutes) of ketamine could be an anti-inflammatory agent, and could protect microglia and astrocytes from being activated by inflammatory agents. This low dose of ketamine has also been shown to improve fatigue within 24 hours after a single infusion, and to improve inflammatory pain. This makes ketamine a feasible candidate for the treatment of inflammation-associated symptoms of GWI. This pilot study will examine if GWI is related to NMDAR functioning, testing effects of a single 40-minute intravenous infusion of 0.5 mg/kg of ketamine on GWI symptom severity in 21 veterans of the 1990-1991 Gulf War who meet Kansas case definition criteria of GWI.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT04712071
- Recruitment status
- Terminated
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Early Phase 1
- Enrollment
- 1 participant
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Jan 31, 2021
- Primary completion
- Feb 15, 2022
- Completion
- Feb 15, 2022
- Last update posted
- Mar 2, 2022
2021 – 2022
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marijn Lijffijt | Houston | Texas | 77030 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT04712071, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Mar 2, 2022 · Synced Sep 10, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT04712071 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.