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A [6-14c] Glucose Autoradiographic Study Of The Rat Brainstem Under Hypercapnic And Hypocapnic Conditions: Identification Of Respiratory-Related Regions, Tobey M. Leung

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The effects of systemic hypercapnia on brainstem metabolism were studied with the [6-¹⁴C] glucose autoradiography method. Neuronal pools which are metabolically active take up more [6-¹⁴C] glucose and maybe revealed pictorially as darker areas on autoradiograms. Since a high concentration of carbon dioxide stimulates central chemoreceptors and hence enhances respiratory drive, the darker regions on the autoradiograms may represent regions concentrated with respiratory-related neurons. Two discrete regions in the ventrolateral medulla (a column near nucleus ambiguus and a column in the lateral reticular nucleus) appeared dark and were analyzed with an image processing system, which converted …