[Application of quantitative autoradiography to the measurement of brain function activity in rats during post-natal...

Quantitative autoradiographic techniques for the measurement of local cerebral functional activity have been set up in the rat during postnatal development and applied to the measurement of local cerebral glucose and beta-hydroxybutyrate utilization as well as of local cerebral blood flow from 10 to 35 days after birth. These techniques have shown transient peaks of cerebral activity for both energy metabolism, expressed in terms of glucose plus beta-hydroxybutyrate utilization, and blood flow from 14 to 17 days of postnatal age. These methods which allow the mapping of functional activity simultaneously in all cerebral regions of conscious animals represent a tool of choice for the study of metabolism and blood flow regional changes, particularly in pathological situations.