Vitamin A Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Vitamin A, including details on retinol, benefits, dosage, supplements, deficiency, information.

Functional implication of the vitamin A signaling pathway in the brain.

Tafti M, Ghyselinck NB

Center for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland. Mehdi.Tafti@unil.ch

Vitamin A is necessary for normal embryonic development, but its role in the adult brain is poorly understood. Vitamin A derivatives, retinoids, are involved in a complex signaling pathway that regulates gene expression and, in the central nervous system, controls neuronal differentiation and neural tube patterning. Although a major functional implication of retinoic signaling has been repeatedly suggested in synaptic plasticity, learning and memory, sleep, schizophrenia, depression, Parkinson disease, and Alzheimer disease, the targets and the underlying mechanisms in the adult brain remain elusive.

Published 11 December 2007 in Arch Neurol, 64(12): 1706-11.
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