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@ARTICLE{vonEugen:917399,
author = {von Eugen, Kaya and Endepols, Heike and Drzezga, Alexander
and Neumaier, Bernd and Güntürkün, Onur and Backes, Heiko
and Ströckens, Felix},
title = {{A}vian neurons consume three times less glucose than
mammalian neurons},
journal = {Current biology},
volume = {32},
number = {19},
issn = {0960-9822},
address = {London},
publisher = {Current Biology Ltd.},
reportid = {FZJ-2023-00613},
pages = {4306 - 4313.e4},
year = {2022},
abstract = {Brains are among the most energetically costly tissues in
the mammalian body.1 This is predominantly caused by
expensive neurons with high glucose demands.2 Across
mammals, the neuronal energy budget appears to be fixed,
possibly posing an evolutionary constraint on brain
growth.3-6 Compared to similarly sized mammals, birds have
higher numbers of neurons, and this advantage conceivably
contributes to their cognitive prowess.7 We set out to
determine the neuronal energy budget of birds to elucidate
how they can metabolically support such high numbers of
neurons. We estimated glucose metabolism using positron
emission tomography (PET) and 2-[18F]fluoro-2-deoxyglucose
([18F]FDG) as the radiotracer in awake and anesthetized
pigeons. Combined with kinetic modeling, this is the gold
standard to quantify cerebral metabolic rate of glucose
consumption (CMRglc).8 We found that neural tissue in the
pigeon consumes 27.29 ± 1.57 μmol glucose per 100 g per
min in an awake state, which translates into a surprisingly
low neuronal energy budget of 1.86 × 10-9 ± 0.2 × 10-9
μmol glucose per neuron per minute. This is approximately 3
times lower than the rate in the average mammalian neuron.3
The remarkably low neuronal energy budget explains how
pigeons, and possibly other avian species, can support such
high numbers of neurons without associated metabolic costs
or compromising neuronal signaling. The advantage in
neuronal processing of information at a higher efficiency
possibly emerged during the distinct evolution of the avian
brain.Keywords: PET; bird; brain; energy consumption;
evolution; metabolism.},
cin = {INM-2 / INM-5},
ddc = {570},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)INM-2-20090406 / I:(DE-Juel1)INM-5-20090406},
pnm = {5253 - Neuroimaging (POF4-525)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-5253},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
pubmed = {36084646},
UT = {WOS:000898422800011},
doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.070},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/917399},
}