Why the study?
Does intravenous copper treatment improve brain neurotransmitter metabolism in lambs with low copper status?
Does intravenous copper treatment improve brain neurotransmitter metabolism in lambs with low copper status?
Intravenous copper treatment in lambs with low copper status significantly increases brain dopamine and norepinephrine levels.
Copper repletion may normalize catecholamines in deficient lamb models; leaves open translation to human neurology or cardiology.
Ataxic and non‐ataxic lambs reared under field conditions which gave rise to low copper status were treated with copper intravenously. Untreated ataxic animals served as controls. The neurotransmitter amines, dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin, were determined in the anterior and posterior regions of the brain stem. Dopamine levels in the anterior region, including the corpus striatum, were significantly lower in the untreated animals than in those treated with copper. Norepinephrine levels were also lower but serotonin concentrations were not different. Plasma amine oxidase activity was markedly higher in the copper treated animals but monoamine oxidase activity in brain stem homogenates was not significantly affected. The monoamine oxidase activity in cortical and cerebellar homogenates was significantly lower in the treated animals than in the untreated animals.
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O’Dell et al. (1976) studied this question.
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