Methylene Blue Improves Short-term Memory In Humans

[haidut]

I suppose the results of this study are to be expected but I wanted to post it anyways since it was one of the few human studies using methylene blue. The doses used was pretty high (4mg/kg for human) but for some reason the authors claim that this is actually a pretty low dose. Be that as it may, oral administration of methylene blue in the dose range 0.5mg/kg - 4mg/kg improves memory and cognition in humans.

RSNA Publications Online
RSNA: Methylene Blue Shows Promise for Improving Short-Term Memory

"...The results showed methylene blue increased response in the bilateral insular cortex—an area deep within the brain associated with emotional responses—during a task that measured reaction time to a visual stimulus. The fMRI results also showed an increased response during short-term memory tasks involving the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which controls processing of memories, the parietal lobe, primarily associated with the processing of sensory information, and the occipital cortex, the visual processing center of the brain. In addition, methylene blue was associated with a 7 percent increase in correct responses during memory retrieval. The findings suggest that methylene blue can regulate certain brain networks related to sustained attention and short-term memory after a single oral low dose. “This work certainly provides a foundation for future trials of methylene blue in healthy aging, cognitive impairment, dementia and other conditions that might benefit from drug-induced memory enhancement,” Dr. Duong said."

 

[paymanz]

the date of article made a smile on my face,thanks for fresh up to date post haidut!

 

[Entropy]

I've been taking 200mcg last few days, looks like I'll be doubling the dose

 

[judge]

wow! i do 10 drops of 7% solution in a gallon of water. I figure it comes out around 60-100 ppm. i do get a slight boost in energy and short term memory is better. Wonder what 4mg/Kg is in ppm?

 

[marteagal]

Thanks for posting this. I am a fan of MB and I find it pretty cool that people investigate effects of methylene blue utilizing fMRI.
I just want to note that the results of this study have a very "exploratory" character.

"A whole-brain uncorrected P < 0.005 and 10-voxel threshold (K >= 10) was applied. This methodology was used in numerous studies that assessed the effects of nicotine with functional MR imaging [...]"

That way of thesholding is quite lenient as it doesn't account at all for the problem of multiple statistical comparisons. I didn't know that in 2016 such results would still find acceptance. The argument that other researchers also don't care about false positives, doesn't make it any better, IMO.

But as alluded to in the Discussion, the authors seem to conduct several related studies at present, so if the reported effects were indeed above chance level, we will see their replication soon ...