One of the co-authors of the paper, Dr. Fritz Lorscheider of the university's faculty of medicine, said the research highlights the need to reduce public exposure to mercury. The experiments used mercury levels that are typically found in people who have a large number of amalgam fillings. What it really means is that we . . . A paper outlining the findings is being published as the cover story in the April issue of the British journal NeuroReport. Almost everyone in North America is exposed to trace amounts of mercury.
Fillings emit mercury vapour when people chew.
Mercury concentrations have been rising in many seafoods, as fish absorb metal dispersed by coal-burning power plants and mining. Until now, scientists have known that mercury is a potent nerve poison, causing tremors, loss of memory, insomnia, depression and personality changes, but they did not understand how. Dr. Lorscheider and the two other researchers found that mercury attacks proteins called microtobules, which provide the structure of a nerve cell in much the same way that a skeleton provides structure for an animal. The experiments were conducted with other metals, including aluminum, lead, cadmium and manganese, but they had no effect like that of mercury. Nerves form the electrical wiring of the body, and disintegration of parts of this network could explain behavioural changes.