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Mercury + Neurons = ? Mercury has long been known to be a potent neurotoxic substance whether it is inhaled or consumed in the diet as a food contaminant. Over the past 15 years medical research laboratories have established that dental amalgam tooth fillings are a major contributor to mercury body burden. In 1997, a team of research scientists demonstrated that mercury vapour inhalation by animals produced a molecular lesion in brain protein metabolism which was similar to a lesion seen in 80% of Alzheimer diseased brains. Recently completed experiments by scientists at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine now reveal, with direct visual evidence from brain neuron tissue cultures, how mercury ions actually alter the cell membrane structure of developing neurons. To better understand mercury's effect on the brain, let us first illustrate what brain neurons look like and how they grow. In this animation, we see three brain neurons growing in a tissue culture, each with a central cell body and numerous neurite processes. At the end of each neurite is a growth cone where structural proteins are assembled to form the cell membrane. Two principal proteins involved in growth cone function are actin, which is responsible for the pulsating motions seen here, and tubulin, a major structural component of the neurite membrane. During normal cell growth, tubulin molecules link together, end to end, to form micro-tubules which surround neurofibrils, another structural component of the neuronal ...