BEHAVIORAL AND BIOCHEMICAL EFFECTS OF ACUTE CENTRAL METABOLIC INHIBITION - EFFECTS OF ACETYL-1-CARNITINE

In the present study we evaluated a new method to assess the behaviour al and biochemical effects of a brief period of acute hypoxia in the b rain. In this method, cyanide is injected into the lateral ventricles. Spatial navigation performance in a Morris task was found to be impai red 1 and 5 min after an i.c.v. injection of 5.0 mug cyanide but not a fter 2.5 mug cyanide. Increased rate of phosphatidic acid formation, r eflecting increased phospholipase C activity, were observed after inje ction of 5.0 mug cyanide, indicating that energy-dependent phosphoinos itide metabolism was affected. Chronic treatment with acetyl-1-carniti ne attenuated the cyanide-induced behavioural deficit, but had no effe ct on energy-dependent phophoinositide metabolism. The results suggest that, in this model, acetyl-1-carnitine may act via free fatty acid m etabolism, by increasing the reservoir of activated acyl groups which are involved in the reacylation of membrane phospholipids.