Influence of aging and exogenous substances on cerebral energy metabolism in posthypoglycemic recovery.

In rats of different ages, acute severe hypoglycemia with isoelectric EEG induced extensive deterioration of the energy state and gross alteration of amino acid contents. During recovery of adult animals, tissue glucose concentration returned to normal, while the rate of glycogen synthesis was slow, both lactate and pyruvate concentrations increasing above normal. In the recovery period of "adult" rats, the ATP concentration increased but the adenine nucleotide pool remained reduced, even if the ADP and AMP concentrations were close to normal. Phosphocreatine was restored to normal concentrations with reciprocal changes in creatine content. In adult rats, during the recovery there was a rise in glutamate and glutamine concentrations, gamma-aminobutyrate concentration returning to normal value. Ammonia and aspartate decreased below normal, while alanine increased above normal. Aging does not affect the cerebral metabolic derangement occurring in severe hypoglycemia, but rather the metabolic changes that the brain tends to reverse during the posthypoglycemic restitution. In fact, there was lower restitution of the concentrations of cerebral cortical metabolites of "mature" and "senescent" rats in comparison with "adult" ones. Particularly, in older brains the concentrations of many amino acids and adenylate nucleotides remained largely abnormal. The effect of some agents on the posthypoglycemic recovery was tested: (a) dihydroergocristine; (b) eburnamonine; (c) raubasine; (d) almitrine; (e) piracetam. During the posthypoglycemic recovery, these different agents exhibited different interferences on glycolytic metabolites, amino acids and energy-rich phosphates. However, a more limited effect of the tested agents, which decrease with aging, was observed.