Metabolic studies of the edematous cerebral cortex of the pyrithiamine-treated thiamine-deficient rat.

The pyrithiamine-treated rats produced by our method histopathologically exhibited the edematous lesion not only around the third ventricle and at the tegmentum of pons, as expected, but also in the cerebral cortex. These animals were, therefore, used in a biochemical study of the cerebral cortex, in particular, glucose metabolism. The results indicate an accumulation of lactate and severe impairment of the lipid metabolism in the edematous lesion of the cerebral cortex among the pyrithiamine-treated rats. The fact that oxygen consumption was hardly diminished, however, strongly suggested that amino acids were selectively supplied to the tricarboxylic acid cycle from the free amino acid pool.