Oxidative and anti-inflammatory products of DHA with neuroprotective bioactivity (dihydroxy-docosatriene, neuroprotectin D1), which are strongly neuroprotective4,5 including the w-3 resolvins and DHA for the retinoid X receptors8 and will switch on over100 genes involved with brain development.9DHA has also been shown to promote neurite growth and synaptogenesis in embryonic hippocampal neurons.
DHA) is a major constituent of the brain membrane phosphoglycerides and together with AA is essential for brain growth and function the brain first evolved in the sea 500 million years ago using DHA for its signaling structures and our brains today still depend on the same chemistry.Brain lipids are different from the heart lipids and mitochondrial lipids are different from those in the nuclear envelope. There are differences even within the mitochondria.
DHA in the vision and the brain dates across the known range of the present genomic representatives of vertebrate evolution. It is as though DHA is the master of DNA.
This idea offers a quantum mechanical electron transfer explaining precision of function unique to DHA, which becomes dysfunctional if a double bond is missing at either end of the molecule.35, 36 This is an operational example of Darwin’s “Conditions of Existence.” DHA is the only w-3 fatty acid used in neural signaling processes over 600 million years of evolution.