Taurine (2017, '19, '20) & Cognitive Function

Taurine is of interest to researchers because of its link to cognitive function.¹ In Alzheimer mice, taurine improved cognitive impairment.²

Researchers investigated the effect of taurine in Alzheimer's treatment using functional molecular imaging, a method of taking images of molecules in living mice rather than the conventional samples of preserved tissue. They did not observe any change in amyloid beta pathology between taurine-treated and non-treated Alzheimer's mice. However, taurine therapy did increase uptake of a specific receptor in the brain (metabolic glutamate receptor type 5), thus giving it therapeutic potential against Alzheimer's.³

Research

1. Chen C, Xia s, He J, Lu G, Xie Z, et al. (2019). Roles of taurine in cognitive function of physiology, pathology, and toxication. Life Sci. Aug 15;231:116584.
2 Jang H, Lee S, Choi SL, Kim HY, Baek S, Kim Y. (2017). Taurine Directly Binds to Oligomeric Amyloid-B and Recovers Cognitive Deficits in Alzheimer Model Mice. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2017;975 Pt 1:233-241.
3. Oh SJ, Lee HJ, Jeong YJ, Nam KR, Kang KJ, et al. (2020). Evaluation of the neuroprotective effect of taurine in Alzheimer's disease using functional molecular imaging. Sci Rep. Sep 23;10(1):15551.