Role in Disease
High levels of kynurenic acid have been identified in patients suffering from tick-borne encephalitis, schizophrenia and HIV-related illnesses. In all these situations increased levels were associated with confusion and psychotic symptoms. Kynurenic acid acts in the brain as a glycine-site NMDAr antagonist, key in glutamatergic neurotransmission system, which is thought to be involved in the pathophysiology and pathogenesis of schizophrenia.
A kynurenic acid hypothesis of schizophrenia has been proposed in 2007, based on its action on midbrain dopamine activity and NMDArs, thus linking dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia with the glutamate hypothesis of the disease.
High levels of kynurenic acid have been identified in human urine in certain metabolic disorders, such as marked pyridoxine deficiency and deficiency/absence of kynureninase.
When researchers decreased the levels of kynurenic acid in the brains of mice, the cognition was shown to improve markedly.
Read more about this topic: Kynurenic Acid
Famous quotes containing the words role in, role and/or disease:
“If women’s role in life is limited solely to housewife/mother, it clearly ends when she can no longer bear more children and the children she has borne leave home.”
—Betty Friedan (20th century)
“Mental health data from the 1950’s on middle-aged women showed them to be a particularly distressed group, vulnerable to depression and feelings of uselessness. This isn’t surprising. If society tells you that your main role is to be attractive to men and you are getting crow’s feet, and to be a mother to children and yours are leaving home, no wonder you are distressed.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“‘Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.”
—Ben Jonson (c. 1572–1637)