A delicate balance: Iron metabolism and diseases of the brain

TLDR

Iron is essential for brain functions such as neurotransmitter synthesis, myelination, and mitochondrial activity, but its redox chemistry can generate oxidative stress, so precise regulation is required to prevent the harmful effects of both overload and deficiency. This review examines how brain iron metabolism is regulated and how its disruption impairs neurological function.

Abstract

Iron is the most abundant transition metal within the brain, and is vital for a number of cellular processes including neurotransmitter synthesis, myelination of neurons, and mitochondrial function. Redox cycling between ferrous and ferric iron is utilized in biology for various electron transfer reactions essential to life, yet this same chemistry mediates deleterious reactions with oxygen that induce oxidative stress. Consequently, there is a precise and tightly controlled mechanism to regulate iron in the brain. When iron is dysregulated, both conditions of iron overload and iron deficiencies are harmful to the brain. This review focuses on how iron metabolism is maintained in the brain, and how an alteration to iron and iron metabolism adversely affects neurological function.