GABA High In Alzheimer ?

[Elephanto]

"In this new study, Chen’s team discovered that the brains of deceased Alzheimer’s patients possessed abnormally high concentrations of an inhibitory neurotransmitter called GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)"
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-me ... discovered

Is there any Peat perspective that could explain this ? I know that he speaks in good of GABA and a lot of his recommendations promote it, but caffeine also blocks GABA and that could be one of its benefits on health.

 

[uuy8778yyi]

possibly confused with dopamine ?

 

[pboy]

that would make sense...If you use something like kava kava...you'd know exactly how that could be possible. It makes you spacey and really in the present moment, without much capability for much thought in the future or of anything deep, quick...its kidna like you feel like youre laying back on the beach hinting towards falling asleep...super relaxing but I could see how if that stayed elevated consistently, and you never got back to a point of reference of not having gaba, it could lead to symptoms like that. Dopamin would be like something that could help break that

Personally I don't think gaba is that beneficial...I liken it to almost like a serotonin thing but not as bad...well not even close, I guess it can have its role. The difference between gaba and serotonin is that serotonin has accompanying defeatist thoughts and a tendency to give up on things. Gaba is rather positive or neutral, and pleasant...even anti stress, helps immunity and recovery, but I could see how if it was chronically elevated things could become numb or repetitive and not like...thrilling, and you could lose sense of reality, it kind blocks out feeling in the sense of heart, its more totally relaxed and receptive, but nothing really changes you or makes an impact and thought capacity is less, motivation to grow and learn things and stuff is less. I could see definite stagnation in life with gaba ll the time rather than a night or relaxing day every now and then. Its also the kind of thing that like...I don't think you could like execute on it...if you had a lot of responsibility and had to think on feet and be active, quick, decisive and stuff...I think it might compound stress...and if things back up in your life, then it could be a problem. Gaba would be great for like a stay at home mom with kids...or something like that at best (tho it might make you forgetful, and fearful of driving), like I could see it being better for woman who weren't in a stressful job that was of the normal heartless or strict business type. And I think the more stimulant type things are better for men...it just fits, but even then not too much of either for either. I think gaba is like...I don't know what to compare it to, maybe sorta like a runners high kinda thing..it has its temporary use, or adrenaline...which lowers pain in a situation you need it and allows decisive functioning, but its not something you want all the time or it would interfere with your personality and perspectives on life

I wonder why or how people get elevated gaba ...and end up with alhzheimer symptons...I only know of like drugs and herbs that increase it...ive never got a gaba feel like that eveer without taking some kidn of substance..which makes me think its a kind of stress signaler also...or perhaps..actually...when you're like really in a comfortable location and nothing on mind...when you're laying down to fall asleep and feel kind of floaty etheric in the head and its just really nice..thats how high gaba feels to an extent. Other than that its kind of only substance induced which means it might be some kind of stress signaler, of the pain killing type, like an opiate kind of thing...as an analogy

 

[Elephanto]

Couple things I found :

Increases growth hormone
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18091016

Glutamate is a precursor of Gaba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutamic_a ... _precursor

Effect of iron deficiency on Gaba
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3453737/
The activities of glutamate dehydrogenase, glutamic acid decarboxylase, and GABA-transaminase (GABA-T) in brain decreased by 15%, 11.4% and 25.7%
(so that would mean excess iron in brain, excess gaba?)

Serotonin modulates glutamate and gaba
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430669/
At a pre-synaptic level, 5-HT can modulate neurotransmitter release: for example, in various brain regions glutamate release is reduced by 5-HT1A [162, 164, 177], 5-HT1B [13, 130, 151, 167] and 5-HT6 receptors [31]. Similarly, pre-synaptic inhibition of GABA release is mediated by 5-HT1A [90, 95, 96] and 5-HT1B receptors [88, 117]. By activation of 5-HT3 receptors, instead, 5-HT stimulates the release of either glutamate [7, 57, 185] or GABA [90, 96, 179]. Also 5-HT2 receptors were shown to stimulate GABA release [2] and to either increase [2, 72, 177] or reduce [118] glutamate release in distinct structures.

I wonder if inhibiting serotonin would be a bad thing then?

 

[Elephanto]

Oh I found my answer

Here, we show that reactive astrocytes aberrantly and abundantly produce the inhibitory gliotransmitter GABA by monoamine oxidase-B (Maob) and abnormally release GABA through the bestrophin 1 channel
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v20/n8 ... .3639.html

So, how do we inhibit Mao-B ?

 

[narouz]

Just happened to see that "paymanz" posted this related study a few months back...

by paymanz » Thu Jan 29, 2015 5:37 am

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18543146

Naturally occurring benzodiazepines have been identified in regular food such as wheat and potato, but there is still no evidence that potato extracts can affect CNS responses in vivo. Here we found that undiluted potato juice and potato juice diluted with saline 1 : 2 administered 10 min intracisternally ( I. C.) and 30 min per os before bicuculline exerted significant anticonvulsant activity in the bicuculline-induced seizure threshold test in mice. In vitro, potato juice from different harvests at dilution series from 10 % to 0.000001 %, diluted 100,000-fold, displaced 50 % of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor ligand [ (3)H]GABA and diluted 40-fold displaced 50 % of [(3)H]flunitrazepam from binding sites in mice forebrain membranes. The low content of diazepam (0.04 +/- 0.01 mg/kg) determined by HPLC and mass spectrometry in the potato extracts could not sustain the anticonvulsant activity of potato juice in vivo; therefore we hypothesized that potato juice might contain GABA (A) receptor GABA-site active compounds. The findings of this study suggest that potato juice as well as potato taken as food may have the capacity of influencing brain GABA-ergic activity.

 

[Elephanto]

Good find. and about this thread on caffeine inhibiting Gaba, seems like it does it by inhibiting Mao-a/b :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23850513

 

[jb116]

Relation is not causation. It could very well be that GABA is a by-product of a detrimental process associated with Alzheimer's. This doesn't mean GABA itself is bad or a cause in any way. The elevated GABA may be a defensive effect.

 

[TeslaFan]

So, how do we inhibit Mao-B ?

Selegiline

 

[haidut]

Relation is not causation. It could very well be that GABA is a by-product of a detrimental process associated with Alzheimer's. This doesn't mean GABA itself is bad or a cause in any way. The elevated GABA may be a defensive effect.

Exactly! When you under stress and ACTH rises it triggers production of pregnenolone. So, people under (short term) stress will have elevated pregnenolone. That does not mean it is bad, in fact it is there to control cortisol.

 

[jb116]

Relation is not causation. It could very well be that GABA is a by-product of a detrimental process associated with Alzheimer's. This doesn't mean GABA itself is bad or a cause in any way. The elevated GABA may be a defensive effect.

Exactly! When you under stress and ACTH rises it triggers production of pregnenolone. So, people under (short term) stress will have elevated pregnenolone. That does not mean it is bad, in fact it is there to control cortisol.

Yes, great example to solidify that point haidut