Molecule from breast milk can improve mental function in dementia
 

(as noted by Zucchini--must know if one has excessive acetylcholine relative to dopamine...)
Science News, January 5, 2008, vol. 173. no.1 p. 13
Neuroscience
Milking performance from damaged brains
Given intravenously, a molecule found in breast milk can improve mental function in people with dementia and in victims of stroke and traumatic brain injury.
Researchers at the University of Palermo in Italy tested the molecule, called glycerophosphocholine (GPC), for its effect on neurological functioning in 2,044 stroke victims. GPC improved the patients' performance by 27 percent compared with patients not given the treatment, the scientists reported in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
In 12 seperate trials by different research groups, GPC also significantly improved memory, attention, and orientation in people with various forms of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. And mice given GPC recovered from induced brain injuries more quickly than untreated mice, says Parris M. Kidd, a biologist at Crayhon Research, a Reno, Nev., company that sells brain nutritional supplements.
GPC works BY INCREASING THE NUMBER OF RECEPTORS ON BRAIN CELLS FOR NERVE GROWTH FACTOR, a signaling protein that spurs production and survival of nerves. GPC CAN READILY CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER, a layer of cells that surrounds blood vessels in the brain and controls which proteins and other large molecules can pass from the blood to nerve cells. These cells can also convert GPC into choline, which they then use to make acetylcholine, a chemical messenger that carries signals between nerves. Patrick Barry

Aricept increases acetylcholine, too.


doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2005.04.080

Research report

Direct detection of brain acetylcholine synthesis by magnetic resonance spectroscopy

The cholinergic system is an important modulatory neurotransmitter system in the brain. Changes in acetylcholine concentration have been previously determined directly in animal models and human brain biopsy specimens, and indirectly, by the effects of drugs, in living humans.

Here, we developed a method for direct determination of acetylcholine synthesis in living brain tissue. The method is based on administration of choline, enriched with carbon-13 (stable isotope) in the two methylene positions, and detection of labeled acetylcholine and all other metabolic fates of choline, by carbon-13 magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

We tested this method in rat brain slices and found it to be specific for acetylcholine synthesis in both the cortex and hippocampus. This method is potentially useful as a research tool for exploring the cholinergic system role in cognitive processes and memory storage as well as in diseases in which the malfunction of the cholinergic system has been implicated.