The DOI matches its Crossref record; 25 of the 25 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Zinc: The brain's dark horse
Abstract
Zinc is a life‐sustaining trace element, serving structural, catalytic, and regulatory roles in cellular biology. It is required for normal mammalian brain development and physiology, such that deficiency or excess of zinc has been shown to contribute to alterations in behavior, abnormal central nervous system development, and neurological disease. In this light, it is not surprising that zinc ions have now been shown to play a role in the neuromodulation of synaptic transmission as well as in cortical plasticity. Zinc is stored in specific synaptic vesicles by a class of glutamatergic or “gluzinergic” neurons and is released in an activity‐dependent manner. Because gluzinergic neurons are found almost exclusively in the cerebral cortex and limbic structures, zinc may be critical for normal cognitive and emotional functioning. Conversely, direct evidence shows that zinc might be a relatively potent neurotoxin. Neuronal injury secondary to in vivo zinc mobilization and release occurs in several neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in addition to epilepsy and ischemia. Thus, zinc homeostasis is integral to normal central nervous system functioning, and in fact its role may be underappreciated. This article provides an overview of zinc neurobiology and reviews the experimental evidence that implicates zinc signals in the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric diseases. A greater understanding of zinc's role in the central nervous system may therefore allow for the development of therapeutic approaches where aberrant metal homeostasis is implicated in disease pathogenesis. Synapse 63:1029–1049, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Rosen, D. R., Siddique, T., Patterson, D., Figlewicz, D. A., Sapp, P., Hentati, A., Donaldson, D., Goto, J., O'Regan, J. P., Deng, H.-X., et al. (1993) · Nature · doi:10.1038/362059a0 · Cited by 7,062
Triple-Transgenic Model of Alzheimer’s Disease with Plaques and Tangles
Oddo, S., Caccamo, A., Shepherd, J. D., Murphy, M. P., Golde, T. E., Kayed, R., Metherate, R., Mattson, M. P., Akbari, Y., & LaFerla, F. M. (2003) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/s0896-6273(03)00434-3 · Cited by 4,126
Synaptic Plasticity and Memory: An Evaluation of the Hypothesis
Martin, S. J., Grimwood, P. D., & Morris, R. G. M. (2000) · Annual Review of Neuroscience · doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.23.1.649 · Cited by 2,794
Drevets, W. C., Price, J. L., & Furey, M. L. (2008) · Brain Structure and Function · doi:10.1007/s00429-008-0189-x · Cited by 2,241 · cited 1×
“Loss of hippocampal neurons is found in some depressed individuals and correlates with impaired memory and dysthymic mood (Drevets et al., 2008).”
BackgroundA molecular and cellular theory of depression
Duman, R. S. (1997) · Archives of General Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1997.01830190015002 · Cited by 2,129
Copper, iron and zinc in Alzheimer's disease senile plaques
Lovell, M. A., Robertson, J. D., Teesdale, W. J., Campbell, J. L., & Markesbery, W. R. (1998) · Journal of the Neurological Sciences · doi:10.1016/s0022-510x(98)00092-6 · Cited by 2,120
Schizophrenia genes, gene expression, and neuropathology: on the matter of their convergence
Harrison, P. J., & Weinberger, D. R. (2005) · Molecular Psychiatry · doi:10.1038/sj.mp.4001558 · Cited by 2,020
Macdonald, R. L., & Olsen, R. W. (1994) · Annual Review of Neuroscience · doi:10.1146/annurev.ne.17.030194.003033 · Cited by 1,975
Cherny, R. A., Atwood, C. S., Xilinas, M. E., Gray, D. N., Jones, W. D., McLean, C. A., Barnham, K. J., Volitakis, I., Fraser, F. W., Kim, Y.-S., et al. (2001) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/s0896-6273(01)00317-8 · Cited by 1,447
Cited by
The Essential Toxin: Impact of Zinc on Human Health
Plum, L. M., Rink, L., & Haase, H. (2010) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph7041342 · Cited by 1,577
Reactive Oxygen Species in the Regulation of Synaptic Plasticity and Memory
Massaad, C. A., & Klann, E. (2011) · Antioxidants & Redox Signaling · doi:10.1089/ars.2010.3208 · Cited by 635
Grabrucker, S., Jannetti, L., Eckert, M., Gaub, S., Chhabra, R., Pfaender, S., Mangus, K., Reddy, P. P., Rankovic, V., Schmeisser, M. J., et al. (2014) · Brain · doi:10.1093/brain/awt303 · Cited by 175
The role of zinc in neurodegenerative inflammatory pathways in depression
Szewczyk, B., Kubera, M., & Nowak, G. (2011) · Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.pnpbp.2010.02.010 · Cited by 176
Dietary zinc and iron intake and risk of depression: a meta-analysis
Li, Z., Li, B., Song, X., & Zhang, D. (2017) · Psychiatry Research · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2017.02.006 · Cited by 156
Metadata
- Authors
- Bitanihirwe, B. K. Y., & Cunningham, M. G.
- Venue
- Synapse
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2009-07-20
- Volume
- 63
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1029-1049
- ISSN
- 0887-4476 (ISSN-L)
- 1098-2396
- OpenAlex
- W1967764516
- Cited by
- 265
- References
- 25
- FWCI
- 16.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Zinc: The brain's dark horse. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1002/syn.20683
- The paper
- Bitanihirwe, B. K. Y., & Cunningham, M. G. (2009). Zinc: The brain's dark horse. Synapse. https://doi.org/10.1002/syn.20683
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
