Magnesium to treat fear?
December 6, 2011
A NEW study has found that an
increase in magnesium may
actually enhance the brain’s ability
to reduce fear and anxiety
responses.
Published in The Journal of
Neuroscience, the study titled
‘Effects of Elevation of Brain
Magnesium on Fear Conditioning,
Fear Extinction, and Synaptic
Plasticity in the Infralimbic
Prefrontal Cortex and Lateral
Amygdala’ involved neuroscientists
from Tsinghua University in Beijing,
University of Texas and University
of Toronto.
The researchers looked at the
effect of increasing brain
magnesium, by a novel magnesium
compound [magnesium-Lthreonate
(MgT) or Magtein] in
rats and found that an increase
enhances synaptic plasticity in the
hippocampus and learning and
memory.
Researchers also found that the
use of a high magnesium
treatment induced a unique
pattern of action on the brain
regions involved in and responsible
for the body’s emotional processes.
As such the treatment
heightened the function of the
prefrontal cortex, a brain region
involved in controlling fear
responses, without affecting the
function of amygdala – the brain’s
region involved in fear memory
formation and storage.
“Through our study, we found
that increasing brain magnesium
with Magtein enhances not only
the learning and memory ability,
but also top-down inhibition of
fear memory of rats,” said study
lead, Dr. Guosong Liu.
“When the cognitive ability is
enhanced, fear responses such as
anxiety-like and post traumatic
stress disorder-like
behaviours, are controlled,” he
added.
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