Comment · Thu, June 29, 2017 · Ceretropic & Nootropics Depot
Choline supplementation diminishes cognition in high baseline performers.
What they were answering
EternallyLowBattery · 12 points
Are these findings to suggest Choline supplementation in all relatively high-functioning people in the aim of cognitive benefit, to be counterproductive? Or only higher functioning members suffering from a7 receptor Hypofunction/Schizophrenic symptoms?
I found the wording towards the middle of the abstract a bit derailing.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic & Nootropics Depot
Lines 579-606 discuss this.
In addition to inter-individual variability in α7 receptor density, of potential relevance to individual differences in response to choline supplementation are basal brain choline levels, which have been shown to be either normal (Jarskog et al., 2013; Steen et al., 2005), diminished (Kraguljac et al., 2012), or increased in SZ patients compared to healthy volunteers (Bustillo et al., 2002; Fujimoto et al., 1996) and to be correlated with positive (Premkumar et al., 2010), negative, and cognitive symptoms (Szule et al., 2012). Relatedly, inter-individual differences in cognitive task performance in rodents have also been associated with variation in choline uptake transporter capacity (Sarter and Parikh, 2005), and have individual differences both in attention (Berry et al., 2014; English et al., 2009; Paolone et al., 2013) and corticolimbic reactivity (Neumann et al., 2006) which have been associated with choline uptake transporter gene polymorphisms. Given the role of the cholinergic system in cognition and underlying neurocircuitry (Newhouse et al., 2011), trait variability in these central mechanisms regulating choline uptake and response may contribute to individual differences in baseline performance and its response to exogenous choline. Accordingly an optimal cholinergic tone within domain-specific neural networks may characterize medium/high performers and any additional increases in brain choline and α7 receptor stimulation with CDP-choline may have pushed these participants to a hyper-cholinergic state relative to what they are accustomed to, resulting in performance impairment (Bentley et al., 2011). In contrast, low baseline performance may be associated with a hypo-cholinergic state, allowing for a greater dynamic range of network response secondary to pro-cholinergic stimulation with the α7 nAChR agonist, choline, and resulting in improved cognition in low performing participants.