Several mechanisms of action have been proposed to explain the neuroprotective effects of MgSO4 (Figure 2). Magnesium is a calcium antagonist that acts both intracellularly and extracellularly,68 and may act directly on cerebral endothelial cells.
The claim that Hassan Rouhani, the new president of Iran, is a âmoderate,â with whom Western leaders can do business on the basis of mutual self-interest, brings to mind an earlier fantasy common among elites in the West after the death of the Soviet dictator, Leonid Brezhnev, in 1982: that his successor as General Secretary, Yuri Andropov, was a closet liberal eager to reduce the tensions of the Cold War, then nearly four decades old, and thereby make nuclear war less likely.
For 13-year-old Hassan, with only Sorkheh behind him, the famous schools of Qom and their learned clerics from around the Shiite world must have been dazzling. Imagine a sandy, late medieval Oxford. Hassanâs enrollment coincided with the arrival of Mohammad Beheshti, destined to be the first judiciary chief of the Islamic Republic, whom Golpayegani had entrusted with the task of modernizing the school.