IDENTIFICATION OF ETHANOLAMINE IN RAT AND GERBIL BRAIN-TISSUE EXTRACTS BY NMR-SPECTROSCOPY

Some NMR resonances which have previously been observed but not identi fied in mammalian brain tissue extracts have been shown to arise from ethanolamine. This conclusion is drawn from a systematic study of the perchloric acid extracts of rodent brain tissue in which several NMR e xperiments were used to assign the peaks unambiguously. The extraction procedure used in this work gave samples with highly reproducible spe ctra, and ethanolamine was observed in all our extract samples. A loca lized increase in the concentration of ethanolamine was seen in the sp ectra of extracts produced from a cerebral infarct induced by occlusio n of the middle cerebral artery in the rat.