[2][6] In accordance, arketamine is significantly less potent than racemic ketamine and especially esketamine in terms of anesthetic, analgesic, and sedative-hypnotic effects.

[13] In rodent studies, esketamine produced hyperlocomotion, prepulse inhibition deficits, and rewarding effects, while arketamine did not, in accordance with its lower potency as an NMDA receptor antagonist and dopamine reuptake inhibitor.

[17] Paradoxically, arketamine shows greater and longer-lasting rapid antidepressant effects in animal models of depression relative to esketamine.

[13][18][14] It has been suggested that this may be due to the possibility of different activities of arketamine and esketamine and their respective metabolites at the α7-nicotinic receptor, as norketamine and hydroxynorketamine are potent antagonists of this receptor and markers of potential rapid antidepressant effects (specifically, increased mammalian target of rapamycin function) correlate closely with their affinity for it.

[14] As of November 2019, arketamine is under development for the treatment of depression under the developmental code names PCN-101 by Perception Neuroscience in the United States and HR-071603 by Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine in China.