Functional integration of fetal cortical grafts into the afferent pathway of the rat somatosensory cortex (SmI).
The somatosensory area of fetal (E15-16) Sprague-Dawley rat neocortex was implanted into the barrel receptor area of adult first somatosensory cortex (SmI) to determine if it could be integrated into the host vibrissa-cortical pathway. Functional integration was tested 3-6 months later using the 2-deoxyglucose [44,45] (2-dg) method for estimation of glucose utilization. A variety of control grafts (cerebellum in SmI cortex, neocortex outside the host SmI cortex and appropriately placed neocortex in non-stimulated hosts) all had uniform 2-dg uptake (70 +/- 10 mumol/100 g/min) throughout each graft which averaged 42% less than non-stimulated host SmI cortex (121 +/- 6 mumol/100 g/min; p less than 0.001) but was 3-fold greater than white matter (24.8 +/- 3.1 mumol/100 g/min; p less than 0.001). In appropriately placed neocortical grafts, vibrissal stimulation produced 125% greater average 2-dg uptake (157 +/- 19 mumol/100 g/min) than control grafts (p less than 0.01). Such appropriately placed and stimulated neocortical grafts also contained focal areas of increased 2-dg uptake which were 43% greater than average graft uptake. These data suggest that fetal neocortical grafts were functionally integrated into the physiologically relevant afferent pathways of adult host brains.
Levin
B E
BE
Neurology Service, Veterans Administration Medical Center, East Orange, NJ 07019.
Dunn-Meynell
A
A
Sved
A F
AF
D000344:Afferent Pathways / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000637:transplantation*; D003847:Deoxyglucose / Q000378:metabolism; D005333:Fetus; D008297:Male; D009928:Organ Specificity; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012016:Reference Values; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*
D003847:Deoxyglucose