Intracerebroventricular injection of streptozotocin induces discrete local changes in cerebral glucose utilization in rats.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether or not cerebral glucose utilization is changed locally after damage of the neuronal insulin receptor by means of intracerebroventricular (icv) streptozotocin (STZ) administered in a subdiabetogenic dosage (1.5 mg/kg bw.). STZ was administered at the start of the study, and 2 and 21 days later bilaterally into the cerebral ventricles in rats of a mean age of 18 months. The local distribution of cerebral glucose utilization was analyzed in conscious rats on the 42nd day after the first STZ injection using the quantitative (14C)-2-deoxyglucose method. Of the 35 brain structures investigated from autoradiograms of brain sections, 17 showed a reduction in glucose utilization. Decreases in glucose utilization were observed in the frontal, parietal, sensory motor, auditory and entorhinal cortex and in all hippocampal subfields. In contrast, glucose utilization was increased in two white matter structures. The decrease in cerebral glucose utilization observed in cortical and hippocampal areas in the present study may correspond to changes in morphobiological parameters which have been found in patients with Alzheimer's disease. The present data are in accordance with the hypothesis that an impairment in the control of neuronal glucose metabolism at the insulin receptor site may exist in sporadic dementia of Alzheimer type (DAT), and can be studied by the icv STZ animal model.