Cerebral metabolism of doubly labeled glucose in humans in vivo

Abstract

With glucose-3-C 14 as injected substrate, the production of C 14 O 2 almost kept pace with the net uptake of C 14 by brain. Brain C 14 O 2 specific activities practically coincided with venous blood glucose specific activities. This rapid production of C 14 O 2 with little or no dilution of C14 led to the derivation of theoretical curves for glucose-2-, glucose-1-, or glucose-6-C 14 experiments. The dissimilarity between theoretical and experimental values suggested that there is a significant dilution of C 14 in traversing the Krebs cycle. Equations derived from hypothetical metabolic pathways which included a pool of substrate, x, were employed to match theoretical with average experimental values. In experiments with doubly labeled glucose-C 14 -T, brain TOH (tritiated water) specific activities were used to derive brain C 14 O 2 specific activity values which closely approximated actual results. A scheme for human cerebral metabolism of glucose in vivo, which includes a small, metabolically active pool of glutamate, ggr-aminobutyrate, and succinic semialdehyde, is proposed. brain glucose oxidation; in vivo brain metabolism; isotopic glucose metabolism; glucose-C 14 -T cerebral metabolism Submitted on February 3, 1964