Phosphatidylserine and Brain Function

SAKAI Masashi, KATAOKA Akito, KUDO Satoshi

doi:10.5650/oleoscience.2.85

Phosphatidylserine (PS), a major acidic phospholipid in the brain, has been studied extensively in regard to its actions on brain functions.<BR>In 1986, Delwaide et al. reported that oral administration of bovine brain cortex derived PS (BC-PS) to patients with senile dementia improved their cognitive disorders. This finding of an anti-dementia effect has been confirmed by more than 10 double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. Notably, a clinical trial on 494 elderly patients in Italy demonstrated the benefit of taking BC-PS as an anti-dementia agent which can improve behavior and cognitive performance without side effects.<BR>However, from a safety point of view, BC-PS is not suitable for use in food given the risk of infectious encephalopathies. In addition, the amount of PS in brain cortex is not high enough and no naturally abundant and safe source of PS has been found. To overcome these problems, a transphosphatidylation reaction using phospholipase D was applied to produce PS (SB-tPS) from soybean lecithins and L-serine.<BR>Although the fatty acid composition of SB-tPS is considerably different from that of BC-PS, SB-tPS was demonstrated to restore scopolamine-induced memory impairment in rodents. In addition, continuous oral administrations of SB-tPS to aged rats improved performance in the water maze escape test similar to BC-PS. These results strongly support the functional similarity of SB-tPS to BC-PS.

Phosphatidylserine and Brain Function

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