Seminars Archive

Shining new light on a century old question in the Neurosciences: Exploration of brain uptake of glucose, its cellular route and implications for nervous system function and metabolism

Abstract
Neurons and their surrounding glial cells comprise the 2 major cell types in the central nervous system, a tissue that depends directly on the supply of blood-born glucose for its energy requirements and maintenance of function. Despite over a century of theory and experimental findings, fundamental issues of brain energy metabolism at the cellular level are still being reformulated. One central, highly controversial and still unresolved question is whether glucose is taken up in a cell-type specific manner in mammalian brain. The use of synchrotron x-ray technology and particularly of low energy X-ray fluorescence detection and mapping of 19F-deoxyglucose at Elettra-Twinmic to tackle this question will be presented and discussed. What emerges is an important scientific and clinical contribution to our understanding of neuron-glial interactions and the interpretation of clinical PET imaging using radiolabeled F-deoxyglucose.