THE EFFECT OF ETHANOL ON CEREBBAL CORTEX METABOLISM IN VITRO

¹ Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco

Resting cerebral cortex metabolism. The oxygen uptake of rat cerebral cortex was increased when ethanol was added in the presence of all substrates except succinate. Ethanol did not affect the oxygen uptake of human cerebral cortex with any of the substrates used. Ethanol had no effect on glucose uptake by either rat or human cortex, nor did it affect lactic acid accumulation with rat cortex with glucose, pyruvate, or acetate. However, with succinate and glutamate, lactic acid accumulation was reduced by ethanol. With human cerebral cortex, ethanol did not affect lactic acid accumulation with glucose, but reduced lactic acid accumulation with pyruvate. With succinate and glutamate, utilization of extracellular lactic acid was affected by ethanol only with glutamate.

KCl-stimulated cortex metabolism. Ethanol slightly decreased oxygen uptake with time. Glucose uptake and lactic acid accumulation were increased by ethanol under these conditions.