Electrical pulses and the metabolism of cell-free cerebral preparations

Abstract

While as shown previously, electrical pulses caused a marked increase in respiration and lactic acid formation for slices and chopped tissue there was no change with suspensions. O2 uptake and esterification of phosphate gave the same rates with and without electrical pulses for suspensions of whole tissue and of mito-chondria. Reducing the K content so that rates of respiration and glycolysis in the latter were not maximal resulted in electrical pulses causing a slight increase in phosphate esterification and O2 uptake. Creatine phosphokinase showed marked inhibition with the electrical pulses used, although this was much less with molybdenum electrodes.