Magnesium - an important element for improving memory

Dr. Ina Slutsky from the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and an international research group discovered that the level of magnesium ions in the brain is essential for memory and learning processes. The group developed a magnesium compound with improved permeability to the blood-brain barrier, which in the future may be used as a medicine to prevent memory loss in humans

An increase in magnesium levels in the brain increases learning and memory in young and old rats, reveals a new study published this week in the journal Neuron. Dr. Ina Slutsky, from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, and an international team found that adding magnesium to drinking water improves cognitive abilities. The research findings support the hypothesis that insufficient levels of magnesium may damage the learning and memory processes in humans.

According to Slutsky, the leader of the research group in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, there is no need to rush to the nearby health food store and buy magnesium pills, because in the pills currently offered for sale, the magnesium compounds have low permeability to the blood-brain barrier. Therefore, to change its concentration in the brain, until today it was necessary to use large amounts of the substance that cause side effects in the digestive system. The team members developed a new magnesium compound that makes it easier to introduce it into the brain without side effects, and with it they were able to improve memory. In the future, the compound may be the basis for preparing a new type of magnesium pills that will better penetrate the ion through the blood-brain barrier, and will be used for drugs to prevent memory loss in humans. Until the commercial availability of the substance, after it passes the stages of clinical tests, it is better to increase the consumption of food products rich in magnesium.

It should be noted that this is a new direction in research, because for decades the role of calcium in regulating the activity of the brain areas responsible for learning and memory has been studied, and very little research has been done on the role of magnesium in this context.

The nature of the diet has a significant effect on the ability to learn and remember. Identifying factors in food that have a positive effect on the synapses - the meeting area of ​​the nerve cells which is the communication channel between the neurons in the brain, may improve learning and memory and prevent the deterioration of this ability resulting from age and diseases," said Dr. Slutsky.

Magnesium, an essential metallic element is found in dark leafy vegetables such as spinach, broccoli as well as in almonds, cashew nuts and some fruits. Those who consume less than 400 milligrams of magnesium per day are at risk of having allergies, shortness of breath (asthma) and heart disease, among other things. In 2004, when Slutsky was on a postdoctoral course at MIT in Prof. Gusong Liu's group, they discovered that magnesium has a positive effect on the flexibility of cultured brain cells. After this finding, the team continued to investigate whether an increase in magnesium levels in the brain and the resulting improvement in flexibility are also reflected in the improvement of the animal's cognitive function.

"Half of the population in industrialized countries suffers from magnesium deficiency, which worsens with age," Slutsky explains. "Magnesium is essential for the proper functioning of many tissues in the body, including the brain. If an adequate level of magnesium is maintained in the brain, the loss of cognitive functions can be slowed down," Slutsky said.

Due to the difficulty of introducing magnesium into the brain using the existing pills, the researchers developed a magnesium-containing compound called magnesium-L-threonate (MgT) that increases the level of magnesium in the brain when it is given as a food supplement while overcoming the barrier between the blood vessels and the brain that prevents the existing drugs from transferring the magnesium into the brain.

The researchers used MgT to increase magnesium levels in rats of different ages and examined the behavioral changes of the rats as well as the cellular changes associated with memory.

As for the behavioral changes, the researchers discovered that an increase in the magnesium level in the brain led to an improvement in spatial and associative memory in both young and old rats.

To understand the molecular mechanisms linking the addition of MgT and the improvement of memory, the researchers examined the changes caused to the functional and structural properties of the synapses. They found that in both young and old rats, MgT increased the flexibility between synapses and a significant increase in the number of synapses was recorded in the hippocampus, an area of ​​the brain responsible for learning and memory.

However, as mentioned, it is still impossible to take advantage of the new discovery, and it still has to overcome the obstacles of clinical trials and approvals from the authorities and, as mentioned, eat broccoli and almonds.

Researchers from the following institutions participate in the study: MIT (USA), Tel Aviv University (Israel), University of Toronto (Canada), Tsinghua University (China).