Monday, September 22, 2014

Rostroventrolateral medullary neurons modulate glucose homeostasis in the rat.

Verberne AJ, Sartor DM.
Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2010 Nov;299(5):E802-7.

I came across this paper by accident, but it is dealing with presympathetic RVLM neurons, so I read it. It’s not about the ones we normally study, but it very much could be about some of the neurons I’ve been finding in my recordings. In this paper they looked at spinally projecting unmyelinated RVLM neurons that were NOT barosensitive, but were sensitive to changes in glucose concentration. These neurons increased their activity during 2-deoxyglucose (2-DG) induced neuroglocoprivation, presumably to drive increased epinephrine release from the adrenal glands in order to compensate for hypoglycemia. When they injected bicuculline in to the region of the RVLM where these glucosensitive were found, not only did they see the expected increase in arterial pressure, but they also saw that the rat’s blood glucose levels went up. This did not occur in rats that had undergone bilateral adrenalectomy. Interestingly, the barosensitive neurons they found were either not affected by 2-DG, or were slightly inhibited – so this is another subpopulation of neurons in the same region, which may support the idea of differential control that we’ve been looking at. -DH

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