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Impact of Magnesium on Oxytocin Receptor Function
Vimala N Bharadwaj1, Justin Meyerowitz1, Bende Zou2
1Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA.
Background And Purpose:
The intranasal administration of oxytocin (OT) reduces migraine headaches through activation of the oxytocin receptor (OTR). Magnesium ion (Mg2+) concentration is critical to the activation of the OTR, and a low serum Mg2+ concentration is predictive of a migraine headache. We, therefore, examined the functional impact of Mg2+ concentration on OT-OTR binding efficacy using two complimentary bioassays.
Experimental Approach:
Current clamp recordings of rat trigeminal ganglia (TG) neurons measured the impact of Mg2+ on an OT-induced reduction in excitability. In addition, we assessed the impact of Mg2+ on intranasal OT-induced craniofacial analgesia in rats.
Key Results:
While OT alone dose-dependently hyperpolarized TG neurons, decreasing their excitability, the addition of 1.75 mM Mg2+ significantly enhanced this effect. Similarly, while the intranasal application of OT produced dose-dependent craniofacial analgesia, Mg2+ significantly enhanced these effects.
Conclusions And Implications:
OT efficacy may be limited by low ambient Mg2+ levels. The addition of Mg2+ to OT formulations may improve its efficacy in reducing headache pain as well as for other OT-dependent processes.
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