Acetate and fluoroacetate as possible markers for glial metabolism in vivo.

[3H]Acetate has been shown by light autoradiographic methods to label the neuropil but not the perikarya in brain and retina. [3H]Fluoroacetate behaves similarly. The study provides anatomical data which support the concept of metabolic compartmentation of glutamic acid and associated metabolites previously derived from biochemical studies. It is suggested that these may be markers of non-neuronal metabolism, probably mostly glial, and may be used to develop procedures which will provide complementary data to that obtained with 2-deoxyglucose on regional metabolism in brain.