GLUCOSE AND OXYGEN UTILIZATION IN SYMPATHETIC GANGLIA 117 



and electrical activity. I think that is where a lot of these misunderstandings 

 arise and in these days the literature is always overloaded and nobody can write 

 a paper that is long enough to describe this work adequately. 



If I understood Dr. Grenell's remarks correctly, when he was speaking of 

 the insulin, he meant direct shock supplied directly to the cortex. Someone 

 else might compare that with some other system as regards the business of 

 stimulating tissues, slices and so on. Lilly and Hughes, who have been working 

 the past year pretty avidly, find that any pulse longer than 20 or 30 micro- 

 seconds is damaging. Part of the theory is that it produces a movement or 

 other dislocation of proteins. But all of these experiments that I know of are 

 open to that criticism. Now, it is equally hard to accept Lilly and Hughes' 

 conclusions on the basis of time intensity curves with the marked differences 

 between C-fiber parameters and A-fiber parameters. But the experimental 

 results seem to be quite clear at this time that they cannot electrolyze tissues — 

 that has been confirmed in other laboratories now — stimulate with short pulses, 

 and keep the threshold down for weeks and apparently get all of the effects that 

 Don Phillips and everyone else who has worked on the cortex have described. 



They can do it more faithfully and more consistently and more accurately 

 and without injury. 



Dr. Stretcher (National Institute of Mental Health) : Dr. Grenell observed 

 that the concentration of ATP was elevated during anesthesia, confirming the 

 earlier findings of Lepage. Also an increase in ATP was observed after electro- 

 shock, suggesting that both experimental procedures result in a decreased 

 utilization of available energy. Similiarly, in tracer studies with P 32 , Dawson 

 and Richter reported that both pentobarbital anesthesia and electroshock 

 decreased phosphate exchange in the phospholipid and nucleoprotein fractions 

 of mouse brain. Low levels of creatine phosphate and ATP are observed after 

 drug-induced convulsions but there is little unequivocal evidence that seizures 

 were the direct result of decreased energy production by the brain. 



Recent work by Bloom et al. with glucose labeled in the 1 or 6 position indi- 

 cates that brain slices do not derive energy by the direct oxidation of glucose 

 through the Warburg-Christian-Dickens pathway. However, evidence for the 

 existence of an alternate pathway was presented some time ago by Barker, 

 Shorr, and Malam in brain slices and by Himwich et al. in vivo. 



Finally, it may be noted that there are two conflicting bodies of evidence 

 concerning the effects of stimulation on phosphorylation in brain, peripheral 

 nerve, and brain mitochondria. Dr. Abood reported that metrazol convulsions, 

 electrical stimulation of nerve, and the passage of electrical pulses through 

 mitochondrial suspensions all produce a decrease in phosphorylation. Opposite 

 results have been observed in both brain and nerve, and Mcllwain has not been 

 able to reproduce the effects on mitochondria. 



Dr. Ling: On the assumption that the nerve and muscle have something in 



