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Published online: 10 February 2010 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2010.20

Neuropharmacology: Magnesium is the new brain food

Felix Cheung

Introduction

© (2010) istockphoto.com

Magnesium (Mg²⁺), the fourth most abundant mineral in the human body, is essential for the proper functioning of tissues and organs, including the brain. In 2004, Guosong Liu and co-workers at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA¹, showed that Mg²⁺ enhances synaptic plasticity — the process by which the brain alters the strength of its synaptic connections. Now, they have found that Mg²⁺ also enhances learning and memory².

Magnesium-L-threonate (MgT), a compound that loads Mg²⁺ into the brain, was developed specifically for this study. The researchers tested whether an increase in brain Mg²⁺ by MgT could influence learning and memory in rats at different ages. They found that an increase in brain Mg²⁺ led to significant enhancement of spatial and associative memory in both young and aged rats — as demonstrated by their performance in the T-maze and Morris water maze tests.

Further studies revealed that MgT increases the number of NMDA receptors and presynaptic boutons. These structural changes in the brain enhance synaptic plasticity, which in turn improves learning and memory. The next step, the researchers said, is to investigate the link between dietary Mg²⁺ intake and cognitive abilities in humans.

The authors of this work are from:
Center for Learning and Memory, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

References

1. Slutsky, I., Sadeghpour, S., Li, B. & Liu, G. Enhancement of synaptic plasticity through chronically reduced Ca²⁺ flux during uncorrelated activity. Neuron 44, 835–849, (2004). | Article | PubMed | ISI | OpenURL | | ChemPort |
2. Slutsky, I. et al. Enhancement of learning and memory by elevating brain magnesium. Neuron 65, 165–177 (2010).  | Article | OpenURL