New Trends in Brain Glucose Metabolism, Morphology and Function

Dear Colleagues,

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), obesity, and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) are intertwined by alterations in brain glucose metabolism and lifestyle interventions have been actively employed for their prevention and treatment. But only recently, brain glucose metabolism has started to be seen as the therapeutic target of such interventions. Thanks to the employing of positron emission tomography (PET) and the tracer [18-F]Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), it has been possible for many decades to non-invasively quantify brain glucose uptake (BGU) in humans. Nonetheless, it is only recently that BGU measurement has been questioned with the evidence suggesting how astrocyte tracer uptake, rather than neurons alone, constitute part of the signal of FDG-PET in the brain. One of the angles of this Special Issue would be to shed light on recent developments on this controversy. The broad focus is to investigate brain metabolism, morphology (MRI) or function (fMRI) in the context of the aforementioned diseases. Preclinical research could provide insight in the disease mechanisms with dedicated models, while clinical research could be focussed on brain alone or in relation to peripheral organs. Longitudinally, it is of interest the investigation of lifestyle intervention such as exercise and diet in AD, T2DM and Obesity. Fatty acids and their metabolism are possibly competing with glucose and lactate, another important substrate. Fatty acid metabolism disruptions have been recently linked to AD, obesity, and T2DM and it would be essential for research to combine brain glucose and fatty acid metabolism investigation in the same subjects. In summary, this Special Issue will provide updated knowledge of brain glucose metabolism as primary or secondary mediator of disease and as a potential target for lifestyle interventions in management of metabolic and neurologic diseases. This would potentially bring researchers to invest more efforts in the field and clinicians to increase awareness about the relevance of the alterations of the brain glucose metabolism.

Dr. Marco Bucci
Guest Editor

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• brain metabolism
• glucose metabolism
• positron-emission tomography
• exercise
• Alzheimer’s disease
• type 2 diabetes mellitus
• obesity
• fatty acid metabolism
• diet
• astrocytes