Abstract #3234

Shestov A, Henry P, Ugurbil K

13C NMR spectroscopy in conjunction with infusion of 13C-labeled substrates can be used to measure metabolic fluxes. In the brain, complex two compartment neuronal-glial models allow determination of a number of metabolic fluxes, including the glutamate-glutamine cycle rate Vnt which is thought to reflect glutamatergic neurotransmission. In this work we use Monte-Carlo simulations to investigate the reliability of metabolic modeling using two-compartment models. We show that Vnt may be unreliable under certain experimental conditions and that additional constraints in the model may be needed for precise determination of this flux.