Astrocytes are ‘good scouts: being prepared also helps neighboring neurons

摘要

Recognition of glycogen as an active participant in the energetics of brain activation is replacing the long-held concept of glycogen as an emergency energy reserve, but the functional roles of glycogen and the cellular utilization of glycogen carbon are unresolved issues. Metabolic modeling by , in this issue predicts that mobilization of glycogen during brain activation provides fuel for activated astrocytes and increases product inhibition of hexokinase thereby reducing astrocytic utilization of blood-borne glucose and increasing glucose availability for activated neurons. Glucose buffering and glucose channeling (not lactate shuttling to neurons) are proposed to be the consequences of glycogenolysis.