Stimulation of glycolytic key enzymes in cerebral cortex by insulin.

In adult male Wistar rats, a test was conducted to find whether or not insulin, administered intracerebroventricularly, would stimulate the activities of the glycolytic key enzymes hexokinase and phosphofructokinase in brain tissue as in non-neuronal tissue. The data clearly demonstrated an increase in these enzyme activities in cerebral cortex by approximately 20% after 80 mU insulin, whereas the increase in the hippocampus was just short of statistical significance. It is concluded that insulin controls glycolytic flux in the brain, and the suggestion that any perturbation in insulin signal transduction has severe impacts on brain glucose metabolism seems justified.