Glutamate buildup may be key factor in mental exhaustion

https://www.science.org/content/article/mentally-exhausted-study-blames-buildup-key-chemical-brain

by Gaishan • 4 years ago

113 51 4 years ago

cung• 4 years ago

So what are the ways to lower glumate buildup?

Glutamate is the primary excitatory neurotransmitter, and GABA is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter. They’re supposed to keep each other in balance (to an extent), so increasing GABA should theoretically lower glutamate.

Perhaps that drink after work isn’t such a bad idea after all…

spoonjim• 4 years ago

Huh. A biochemical model of the Ballmer Peak.

bregma• 4 years ago

Mmmm, balancing the humors. Back to the good old days.

paraiuspau2• 4 years ago

I’ve had great success with N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) which brings glutamate back into balance with GABA [1]. The upshot of this is, it’s reduced my binge-like behaviours massively, although I’m slightly more anhedonic than before.. or maybe just balanced now. Also clears the chest very rapidly. YMMV.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6182588/

samloveshummus• 4 years ago

Good for you, but NAC has a host of effects so you couldn't say it was due to glutamate for sure.

For example, NAC mainly increases glutathione, the primary antioxidant your body uses, so it may reduce the level of oxidative stress and lower your body's stress response. It also increases the level of SAM-e in your body (as you can transform sulfur containing amino acids methionine and cysteine into each other). SAM-e is a crucial cofactor for many processes including creation of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin. And an increase in sulfur amino acids (including NAC) also modulates your gut microbiome.

markdown• 4 years ago

Drink kava.

https://kavaforums.com/forum/threads/kavain-and-glutamate.18...

macrolime• 4 years ago

Sleep.

In the daytime, maybe a powernap or 15 minutes of mediation could work.

refurb3• 4 years ago

N = 24 and the subheader is "Toxicity of excess glutamate may contribute to cognitive fatigue, but some experts are skeptical"

Color me skeptical.

Maxion• 4 years ago

A low sample size does not mean that the result of a study are not valid. No researcher would get funding for a large study right off the bat when looking for something novel. You always start with a prospective study of a small sample size, and then move on.

Furthermore scientific consensus on topics does not come from individual studies, but from the collective collection of studies on a topic.

refurb3• 4 years ago

A low sample size impacts the reliability of the results.

leobg2• 4 years ago

Well, it once was also said that serotonin levels were the key factor in depression.

I think it was B.F. Skinner who wrote that it’s a fool’s errand to try to pin behavior down in some physical or chemical matter in the brain. But I can’t seem to remember the quote... must be the glutamate.

lvncelot• 4 years ago

I always thought it was like trying to find a bug by measuring the CPU voltage.

qikInNdOutReply• 4 years ago

Obviously there is no bug when its doing while(true) dropCoreImage(); print(stacktrace)

leobg2• 4 years ago

That is an excellent metaphor. Skinner would have loved it.

adrianN• 4 years ago

Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor?

https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo...

scld2• 4 years ago

As an electrical engineer, so?

dwaltrip• 4 years ago

It may be an enormous challenge but I’m glad people are trying.

ashwal• 4 years ago

Their measurements (Figure 4) directly contradict this so they add another variable to their model ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Task performance & subjective rating don't change between the two groups.

The measurements are crude.

There's a lot of degrees of freedom in this study. Useful for others in the field, but a popular writeup deserves to go in the bin

beanjuice• 4 years ago

Just tagging on to add a link to the actual article (?) [1]

[1] https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)...

Normille• 4 years ago

Hold the front page! --Researchers discover that, when you're tired, you find it harder to think straight.

zmmmmm• 4 years ago

demanding computational tasks such as face recognition that require megawatts of energy for computers to perform

I'm not sure what computer this is but I'm pretty sure it's not using megawatts just to do some facial recognition (maybe she was fatigued by the time she got to the end of writing the article?).

oofbey5• 4 years ago

Definitely a confused example. Unclear if it should be attributed to the article author or the quoted scientist. The fact that computers are still bad at something brains are good at has nothing to do with fatigue.

samcheng• 4 years ago

Watts are a measure of power, not energy, anyway.

oofbey5• 4 years ago

Plenty wrong with this statement but the units are fine. If you ask somebody “how much energy does that lightbulb use?” the most normal and correct answer would be something like “40 watts”. An answer like “you mean ‘how much power’ not energy because the first law of thermodynamics dictates that energy is never created nor destroyed so it can’t really be ‘used’ now can it?” would be obnoxiously pedantic and totally useless.

soco• 4 years ago

Maybe the article (or just the quote) was written in the 80s?

oofbey5• 4 years ago

Anybody know if consuming MSG is related to glutamate levels in the brain? I know MSG is a subject of long and mostly pointless debate but curious what the actual science is here.

qalmakka2• 4 years ago

MSG naturally occurs in basically everything savory or meaty, so any side effects caused by artificial MSG would probably arise from consumption of natural foodstuffs too. In general we produce lots of glutamate ourselves too (it's one crucial aminoacid), so I honestly find it unlikely that dietary sources can have an influence on how much of it ends up in the brain, but given that there's no definitive science to back this it's all up for debate.

marcescence• 4 years ago

MSG does not cross the blood brain barrier in significant amounts.

carom2• 4 years ago

I get sinus headaches from all things glutamate. MSG in chips, parmesan, tomatos, etc. Doubt it has anything to do with the brain but I can attest that there are dietary reactions to it.

Happy to submit to any study (because I would also like to know what is wrong with me).

jjuliano2• 4 years ago

One thing I know for a fact is that, the actual MSG, even in small liquid form is abrasive, more abrasive than liquid salt, that it can easily scratch metals. In liquid form, I believe that, microscopically, it is enough to cross between the blood-brain barrier. Also, upon ingestion, you get this sudden light-headedness feeling (of course, it varies) or obtuse feeling. The point is, if this material is abrasive enough that easily scratch metals, and can affect mental state, I think it might have been damaging to use (or for long-term), that you need to either stop using it, or lessen the use of it.

atrus• 4 years ago

You could replace MSG with carbon and it wouldn't change anything, so I hope that you're not basing anything important on that type of logic.

MertsA• 4 years ago

MSG is ionically bonded between the sodium and the glutamate ion. As soon as it's dissolved in water you no longer have MSG, you have a solution of sodium and glutamate ions. Chicken broth is also a solution high in sodium and glutamate ions. As far as the notion that even dissolved "in liquid form" it's abrasive, there's zero chance that that's true. It's an ionic compound, when it's dissolved in water, it's individual molecules floating around. Those glutamate ions also don't even really float around on their own either, water molecules are attracted to them and sort of ball up around them which is why reverse osmosis membranes can filter out sodium ions even though the pore size is much larger than the size of a sodium atom.

If you witnessed some MSG and some water causing a small scratch on some metal then either whatever you were using to rub it against the metal caused the scratch or it was something insoluble other than MSG that did it. Maybe silica was added as an anti-caking agent (which is completely safe, a tiny bit of sand dust is not going to hurt you if you aren't inhaling a bunch) and the particle size was coarse enough to leave a visible scratch, either way it's not possible for dissolved MSG to be abrasive.

But you don't have to take my word on the subject, here's a study on the subject. " Monosodium Glutamate in the Diet Does Not Raise Brain Glutamate Concentrations or Disrupt Brain Functions" https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/494782

hoppyhoppy2• 4 years ago

Also being discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32430395

hnbad• 4 years ago

Can't wait for people to run with this headline and write articles about how avoiding MSG makes you smarter or something.

Snark aside, I think while it's important to understand the chemical foundation for how certain brain processes or phenomena manifest, simplifying research results to news pieces like "chemical X is why you feel bad" is very evocative of the pre-modern "humors" approach to human health. Blood pressure too high? Just drain some blood.

thriftwy• 4 years ago

I wonder if that would also make your brain extra tasty for zombies.

dsr_• 4 years ago

N=39. Half as a semi-control group.

8%, 10% differences.

Replicate this with N=1000, it might be worth talking about.

Glutamate buildup may be key factor in mental exhaustion

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