Research Brief
A new study provides further evidence of high levels of the neurotransmitter glutamate in fibromyalgia and suggests that lowering glutamate levels could help alleviate symptoms.
Researcher say two brain scans - magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) - revealed significantly elevated glutamate in the posterior cingulate cortex compared to healthy controls. Levels were slightly higher than in participants with somatization disorder, which also was a focus of the study.
The posterior cingulate cortex is an area in the center of the brain that deals with awareness, pain and some types of memory retrieval, all of which are involved in fibromyalgia. Previous research has uncovered excess glutamate in the insular cortex.
Glutamate's job is to stimulate neurons, helping you learn new information and form memories. However, when glutamate is too high or remains high for too long, it can over-stimulate cells to the point of dysfunction or even death.
Have you used treatments aimed at regulating glutamate? How effective were they? Leave your comments below!
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I find this study to be extremely interesting, but I worry that this may be yet more fodder for the Anti-Pain groups that currently exist.
No, I do not mean those who suffer each day wishing that the Lord would take even a fraction of our pain away…. I am referring to those doctors, residents, interns, sometimes our own families
‘My mother has Lupus Nephritis, used to have endmetriosism which also has it’s debillitating
So, I guess this prompts a question.
Is the glutamate referred to here the same as any glutamate that is in the diet? I am thinking about monosodium glutamate (MSG) which I avoid due to my migraine problems. I have also tried to adopt a gluten free diet as much as possible even though I don’t test positive for gluten problems.
It would be nice to think that besides trying to help wth my migraines avoiding anything containin gluten might help my FMS.
I am so incredibly lost. I looked up “neurotransmitter glutamate” and it looks like some part of protein that is in every kind of food? But you can only taste it when it is in a certain form, such as MSG?
So – help – what is this really, what does it have to do with GABA…. help! FM for 20+ years, now kind of nervous to pieces.
From Your Guide: Glutamate in your brain is different from glutamate in the rest of your body. If you follow the links above on GABA and glutamate it’ll make a lot more sense, I promise! ~Adrienne
Fibromyalgia patients have a lot of disorders that can be detected. These disorders are the consequence of the fibromyalgia syndrom.
Treating these disorders = treating the symptoms and sometimes this can help a little bit to reduce the pain.
The cause of fibromyalgia (nerve entrapment)is known since years.
Prof Dr Dr BAUER (Switzerland) cures his patients by surgical intervention (Max 4 Opérations) which eliminates the cause.
More than 5000 patients worldwide have been cured by Prof BAUER. Those patients don’t need drugs or useless multi-modal treatments anymore.
Bauer’s method has been scientifically proved and published in Frontier Perspective http://www.fms-bauer.com/downloads/FrontierPerspV15Nr2_web.pdf
This information is available on http://www.fms-bauer.com
Just read the information and try to understand the mechanism.
This is A REAL solution for fibromyalgia pat who want to get their live back.
I am a patient of Dr Bauer – before surgery I needed a wheelchair – now I can go shopping again !!
Hope that by means of this information a lot of Fibro pat can be helped.