Molecular mechanism of glutamate-triggered brain glucose metabolism: A parametric model from FDG PET-Scans

Abstract

We present a computational model describing glutamate-stimulated glucose uptake and use into astrocytes. It consists of a set of ordinary differential equations, that specify the time-behavior of the main molecular species involved in the astrocytic glucose use (i. e. glutamate, glucose, Na ∈+∈, β-threohydroxyaspartate) and the dynamical rates of glutamate, glucose and Na∈+∈ uptake. The kinetic rate constants of the model have been identified on a set of dynamic PET images. The relevance of such a model to the PET functional brain imaging consists in providing an in silico framework, in which to experiment the dynamics of glucose metabolism and its spatial mapping to elucidate their still elusive aspects. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.