16) Lithium's ability to stimulate neural stem cell production may prove to be of significant benefit in individuals recovering from spinal cord injury and neurological injuries caused by severe trauma (TBI, traumatic brain injury), dietary and environmental
excitotoxins (mercury, aspartame, monosodium glutamate), and substance abuse.
Brain cells that are low in magnesium are particularly sensitive to the damaging effects of
excitotoxins like aspartame.
Increased lipid peroxidation during kindling is independent of iron salts and
excitotoxin.
Because APM is an
excitotoxin, it stimulates the brain to destruction.
What all of these diseases have in common is a slow destruction of brain cells that are specifically sensitive to
excitotoxin damage.
Martin's group recently reported that they were able to produce the Huntington's pattern of neuronal destruction by injecting the
excitotoxin quinolinic acid into rat brains.
Quinolinic acid induced brain neurotransmitter deficits; modulation by endogenous
excitotoxin antagonists.
Inducing hypothermia by lowering the patient's core temperature acts to reduce secondary brain injury by suppressing
excitotoxin and free-radical reactions, stabilizing cell membranes, reducing intracellular acidosis, and reducing abnormal electrical activity (Kabon, Bacher, & Spiss, 2003).
A number of serious neurological conditions cite reduced membrane fluidity as part of the disease process involved in modulation of NMDA (glutamate) receptors, acting to control
excitotoxin damage.
