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Studies at the
Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center have shown that copper and zinc are
important for brain function. Here, psychologist James Penland performs an
electroencephalogram (EEG), which measures responses from a volunteer's brain
during a dietary study. Click the image for more information about
it.
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Mineral Nutrition's Impact on Neonatal
Development
By Rosalie Bliss September 25, 2007
Copper helps move telecommunications signals across phone wires,
allowing people to talk to one another across long distances. Tiny amounts of
copper, within certain enzymes in the brain, also help form key
neurotransmitters that allow brain cells to "talk" to one another.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists now have described how
adequate amounts of copper are important to brain function. Their animal model
studies suggest that levels of copper intake are critical to the fetus during
pregnancya concept called "nutritional programming."
An early animal study led by biologist
Curtiss
Hunt showed that even moderate copper deprivation in pregnant rats led to
underdevelopment of memory-control areas of their pups' developing brains. He
is a lead scientist at the ARS Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center (GFHNRC)
in Grand Forks, N.D.
The study rats were fed low-copper diets during gestation, lactation,
or both. Their pupswhen compared to pups born to mothers fed
copper-sufficient dietsexhibited slowed development of the dentate gyrus
and hippocampal areas of their brains. These areas are important for higher
brain functions, such as learning.
Several biochemical mechanisms that underlie impaired brain
development associated with copper deficiency have now been described in
Nutritional Neuroscience, a book co-authored by GFHNRC chemist
W.
Thomas Johnson.
Generally, copper deficiency is not a public health concern in the
United States. But 8 to 16 percent of childbearing-age women were found to have
inadequate copper intakes, according to ARS national food-intake survey data
from 2001 and 2002.
Eating a balanced diet containing a variety of nutritious foods is the
best approach to getting adequate dietary copper, according to Johnson. Good
sources of copper include beef liver, mushrooms, trail mix, barley and canned
tomato puree.
Read more
about this research in the September 2007 issue of Agricultural Research
magazine.
ARS is the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.