Magnetic Crystals? In YOUR brain? It’s more likely than you think.

You might have heard that there are magnetic crystals in your brain, called magnetite. Could these magnetic particles really be crystals in our brains, providing some kind of mysterious function? Or is it just fancy wordplay?

It’s entirely likely. In fact, it’s pretty much guaranteed.

Are there crystals in your brain?

There are magnetite and calcite crystals in the brain, meaning they have an orderly metallic structure. Magnetite crystals in the brain are partially formed in our body and partially external. Calcite crystals in the cochlea (ear) and pineal gland are functional via the piezoelectric effect. So we have quite a few crystals serving a purpose in our heads.

People sometimes have issues with the pressure displacing the crystals in the cochlea from accidents. Related disorders include paroxysmal positional vertigo [1]. Crystals are also found in the brain in the pineal gland.

Magnetite, the other type of crystal in the brain, is indeed magnetic. Well, kind of.

Are there magnetic crystals in your brain?

Magnetite crystals were definitively found in the brain in 1992 by Dr. Joseph Kirschvink [2]. Kirschvink spearheaded the idea of humans maybe having a “magnetic sixth sense” like some animals do, despite emphasizing that it’s not a sense in the normal sense of a sense. Magnetoreception, which he still researches at CalTech, would explain the influence of magnetic fields on humans [3].

Kirschvink had to create a lab shielded from magnetic dust. Magnetite particles in the brain are super tiny and thus so are their magnetic fields, so eliminating spurious measurements from ambient magnetic fields was key. At this point in the research, the only source of magnetite in the brain was thought to be from iron metabolism. The body would make magnetite as a byproduct of processing iron.

Why is there magnetite in the brain – pollution or memories?

“…Or [magnetite] could play a role in biology, explaining why electromagnetic fields have been associated with brain cancer and leukemia and why certain odd blips, called spin echoes, show up on magnetic resonance images of the brain … Epidemiological studies over the last decade have suggested a possible but inconclusive link between diseases like brain cancer and childhood leukemia and electromagnetic fields from power lines and certain household appliances … Each human brain on average contains seven billion particles of magnetite, weighing a total of one-millionth of an ounce.”

New York Times 5/12/1992

The magnetite naturally made by the body is not ferromagnetic but ferrimagnetic, and bound up in organic molecules. The spherical magnetite nanoparticles tend to be ferromagnetic, i.e. responsive to magnetic fields. The octa-hexahedral magnetite is characteristically ferrimagnetic. Ferromagnetic metals have a higher transition temperature. Magnetic crystals in your brain are extremely responsive to electromagnetic fields, and it would seem more so in the ferromagnetic shapes.

Self-made magnetite could play a role in memory

In 2003 a study found patients with Alzheimer’s disease to have higher concentrations of magnetite in the brain, but the study did not distinguish between the two shapes of magnetite. [5] A study also found magnetite could bind with amyloid plaques to contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. [6] An amyloid plaque is a type of brain plaque that keeps parts of the brain from communicating normally.

In 2010, Bancolocha published a hypothesis explaining how magnetite could be involved in memory via magnetic signaling as intracellular communication in the brain. [7] And Stomer in 2016 went as far as propose that magnetite might be the “universal memory molecule.” [9]

Spherical magnetite in the brain could be from pollution

In 2016, Maher found concentrations of magnetite in the brain and subdivided the magnetite into different characteristics, or allotropes. [3] The more spherical magnetite is purportedly from breathing in particulates from industrial processes. The offending chemicals span an array of products from diesel exhaust to printer toner. The type of nano-spheres found are linked to free radical production and concentrate in brain tissue, and “are ubiquitous and prolific in urban, airborne particulate matter”. (Maher, 2016)

“Other transition metal nanoparticles, containing Pt, Ni, and Co” were found as well as correlated with levels of magnetite crystals in the brain. They could tell what was likely endogenous and what was not. The endogenous magnetite had euhedral structure. The others matched industrial chemicals in the area, were more spherical and less structural. The externally sourced magnetites were quick-cooled, because they were highly oxidized, one of the main clues they didn’t form in the environment of the body.

The paper gives some more examples of magnetite in the urban environment: “diesel exhaust, as brake-abrasion particles, in the air of underground stations, along railway lines, at welding workplaces, and in the emissions from industrial combustion processes.”

Can magnetite in the brain be dangerous?

“The adverse health effects include chronic bronchitis, exacerbation of asthma, fibrosis, and lung cancer[…] The presence of magnetite in humans, however, also has other potential implications, including possible biological disorders linked to the weak magnetic fields generated by cellular phones, electric power lines, and appliances, or high-field saturation effects from exposure to strong magnetic fields during MRI procedures”

Giere, 2016 [8]

Giere expands upon Mahers findings suggesting a mechanism in which magnetite contributes to free radical formation. These ferrimagnetic magnetic crystals in your brain are the same ones responsible for migratory patterns in earlier species.

Animals using magnetite in the brain

Biogenic magnetite in the brain exists in microbes, mollusks, fish, birds, and mammals. It is thought that Earth’s magnetic field interacts with the magnetite to somehow induce migratory behavior.

Most recently, in 2020 Naisbett-Jones at University of North Carolina exposed salmon to a magnetic pulse. This pulse was such that it would affect the dipole moment of the salmon’s endogenous magnetite. [10] Fish that were placed in a magnetic field mimicking a distant location after the pulse behaved in changed magnetic orientation behavior. This finding comes after finding similar results in turtles, birds, lobsters, and bats, as the paper references. This experiment shows that the way magnetite interacts with magnetic fields can alter fish behavior.

Magnetic crystals in the brain – both good and questionable

In conclusion, octo-hexahedral magnetite in the brain is likely functional and aids in memory and possibly a type of autonomic magnetoreception, but scientists are still unsure on its role. However, magnetite nano-spheres from pollution could be linked with diseases including Alzheimer’s disease. How cancer could be exacerbated by the presence of magnetite in external magnetic fields is the subject of future research.

Sources:

[1] BPPV, Health Cleveland Clinic

[2] Kirschvink JL, Kobayashi-Kirschvink A, Woodford BJ. Magnetite biomineralization in the human brain. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1992 Aug 15;89(16):7683-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.89.16.7683. PMID: 1502184; PMCID: PMC49775.

[3] Joseph L Kirschvink, Michael M Walker and Carol E Diebe. Magnetite-based magnetorecption. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 2001, 11:462–467

[4] Maher, B. A., Ahmed, I. A., Karloukovski, V., MacLaren, D. A., Foulds, P. G., Allsop, D., Mann, D. M., Torres-Jardón, R., & Calderon-Garciduenas, L. (2016). Magnetite pollution nanoparticles in the human brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(39), 10797–10801.

[5] Hautot, D., Pankhurst, Q. A., Khan, N., & Dobson, J. (2003). Preliminary evaluation of nanoscale biogenic magnetite in alzheimer’s disease brain tissue. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 270(suppl_1).

[6] Teller, S., Tahirbegi, I., Mir, M. et al. Magnetite-Amyloid-β deteriorates activity and functional organization in an in vitro model for Alzheimer’s disease. Sci Rep 5, 17261 (2015).

[7]Banaclocha MA, Bókkon I, Banaclocha HM. Long-term memory in brain magnetite. Med Hypotheses. 2010 Feb;74(2):254-7. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2009.09.024. Epub 2009 Oct 7. PMID: 19815351.

[8] Gieré R. Magnetite in the human body: Biogenic vs. anthropogenic. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Oct 25;113(43):11986-11987. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1613349113. Epub 2016 Oct 11. PMID: 27729531; PMCID: PMC5087066.

[9] Størmer, F. C. (2014). Is magnetite a universal memory molecule? Medical Hypotheses, 83(5), 549–551. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2014.08.028

[10] Naisbett-Jones, L. C., Putman, N. F., Scanlan, M. M., Noakes, D. L., & Lohmann, K. J. (2020). Magnetoreception in fishes: The effect of magnetic pulses on orientation of Juvenile Pacific Salmon. Journal of Experimental Biology. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.222091