You may know vitamin D as the “sunshine vitamin” because our bodies produce it in response to exposure to the sun. Among its many benefits, vitamin D helps keep our bones strong and boosts endocrine function, as well as the immune and cardiovascular systems. There also appears to brain health.
Working off the results of previous studies
Previous studies have found a link between vitamin D deficiency and brain-related issues, such as schizophrenia, poor cognition, brain damage and a decreased chance of recovering brain function after experiencing cardiac arrest.
With all of this research in mind, a team of scientists at the University of Queensland Brain Institute in Australia decided to delve deeper to find out how vitamin D correlated to memory function.
For 20 weeks, the team deprived mice of the vitamin and then compared their cognitive test results to those of healthy mice who had plenty of vitamin D.
At the end of 20 weeks, they found that the vitamin-deprived mice had fewer—and weaker—perineuronal nets in the region of the brain responsible for the formation of memories—the hippocampus.
The theory on vitamin deficiency
These perineuronal nets help stabilize the connections between neurons. The researchers theorize that vitamin D deficiency makes it easier for enzymes to break down the nets.
“As neurons in the hippocampus lose their supportive perineuronal nets, they have trouble maintaining connections, and this ultimately leads to a loss of cognitive function,” explains the lead researcher, Associate Professor Thomas Burne. “The next step is to test this new hypothesis on the link between vitamin D deficiency, perineuronal nets and cognition.”
Burne wants to continue his research to determine if the impaired brain function in the hippocampus may contribute to cognitive distortions and memory loss, two symptoms of schizophrenia.
The research was published in the journal Trends in Neurosciences.
