The fact that separated mammalian cerebral cortical tissues , suitably maintained in vitro, show remarkable respiratory and metabolic responses to adequate electrical stimu lation has already been published frequently (1) ; recently it was shown that such respira tory and metabolic responses to adequate electrical stimulation were dependent only on the concentration of external sodium, approximately in Michaelis Menten fashion , but potas sium by itself was inert to this metabolism , and calcium was independent of such responses (2). Meanwhile, a number of studies are being made everywhere at present in order to elucidate the exact mechanism of linkage between active cation transport and metabolism .One of the experimental approaches to the mechanism by which the energy from metabo lism is supplied to active transport, would be to examine the action of metabolic inhibitors .It seems to be necessary to investigate whether or not the respiratory and metabolic responses stated above have any connection with the active transport; therefore , the effects of ouabain and 2, 4-dinitrophenol on the respiratory and metabolic responses of a rat's cerebral cortical slices to electrical stimulation have been studied in this paper .
METHODS AND MATERIALSThe various methods and procedures employed in this experiment have been the same as described in detail in the previous paper (2). We obtained six or four groups of tissue slices from the same rat's cerbral cortex by employing a somewhat particular pro cedure of slicing. The oxygen absorption of brain cortical slices in both the presence and absence of electrical stimulation was observed for a period of 30 minutes with Warburg's con stant respirometer; at the end of the experiment the chemical changes brought about by the metabolism of the tissue slices during the experimental period were determined in the metabolites (inorganic phosphate, lactic acid) . Throughout the experiment, by using the several groups of slices obtained from the same rat's cerebral cortex, we have always simul taneously carried out the control experiments with the groups of slices incubated in normal medium corresponding to each stimulated and unstimulated groups of slices in the agent containing normal medium; in such a experiment this procedure should be important for possibly eliminating the errors introduced by the individual variance in animal. The
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