We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Metabolic Pathways and Activity-Dependent Modulation of Glutamate Concentration in the Human Brain.
- Authors
Mangia, Silvia; Giove, Federico; DiNuzzo, Mauro
- Abstract
Glutamate is one of the most versatile molecules present in the human brain, involved in protein synthesis, energy production, ammonia detoxification, and transport of reducing equivalents. Aside from these critical metabolic roles, glutamate plays a major part in brain function, being not only the most abundant excitatory neurotransmitter, but also the precursor for γ-aminobutyric acid, the predominant inhibitory neurotransmitter. Regulation of glutamate levels is pivotal for normal brain function, as abnormal extracellular concentration of glutamate can lead to impaired neurotransmission, neurodegeneration and even neuronal death. Understanding how the neuron-astrocyte functional and metabolic interactions modulate glutamate concentration during different activation status and under physiological and pathological conditions is a challenging task, and can only be tentatively estimated from current literature. In this paper, we focus on describing the various metabolic pathways which potentially affect glutamate concentration in the brain, and emphasize which ones are likely to produce the variations in glutamate concentration observed during enhanced neuronal activity in human studies.
- Subjects
PHYSIOLOGICAL effects of glutamic acid; BRAIN physiology; PROTEIN synthesis; NEUROTRANSMITTERS; AMINOBUTYRIC acid; NEURAL transmission; ASPARTIC acid
- Publication
Neurochemical Research, 2012, Vol 37, Issue 11, p2554
- ISSN
0364-3190
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11064-012-0848-4