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The Mouse With The Map

Where am I now? Where was I before? How do I get back there? The amazing ability of the human brain to assimilate and analyze such basic information in a fraction of a second relies upon its capacity to learn, retain and retrieve new information. We do it constantly and easily, so much so that we take it for granted. But what about times when we have to stop and consider? How shocked we are when we forget something we thought we knew! 

Cognizin® Citicoline is a dietary supplement that can improve learning and memory and may also enhance retrieval of learned behaviors and memories that may have been lost. 

Consider the case of the lost mice. These were not just any mice, but champion laboratory mice who were trained to swim through a water maze to an island of safety. (This test, called the Morris Water Maze, is often used to test memory function.) At first, they swam around randomly, mostly sticking close to the sides of the pool. Then one brave mouse decided to try a new route: he went across the pool here, there, and another place until he discovered the way to the island. Eventually, all of them learned how to do it. Each time they were plunged into the pool again, they remembered where the island was and were able to reach it in just 20 seconds. 

Then the mice were kept away from the pool for four weeks: a long time in the lifespan of a mouse, equivalent to human years. During that time, half the mice were given citicoline with their mouse chow and the other half were not. Now they were plunged into the pool again. 

The mice who had lived on plain old mouse chow swam around and around the edge of the pool. They had forgotten how to reach the island. They forgot because in all those mouse-years, their brains, like human brains, lost some of their ability to remember.  

Just like aging humans, aging mouse brains lose cells and pathways and the important chemical messengers that brain cells use to communicate. Humans lose about 31 million brain cells a year from about the age of 22 onward – a loss of about one per second. We also lose our ability to synthesize the building blocks of nerve cell membranes, called phospholipids, which are critical in maintaining healthy cell functioning. 

Citicoline supports brain health in several ways: by replenishing the membrane phospholipids, by raising the levels of chemical messengers, and by protecting against free radical damage.  

And the result? The mice who had been supplemented with citicoline were significantly better able to remember where the island had been. They swam to the area of the island quicker, more frequently and more directly than the unsupplemented mice. Their “map” was their memory, enhanced by citicoline to withstand the ravages of time.

As you travel down life’s highway and the road signs get harder to read, who would you rather be -- the mouse swimming around in circles, or the citicoline mouse: the mouse with the map?