Applied electrical pulses and the ammonia and acetylcholine of isolated cerebral cortex slices

Abstract

In contrast with in vivo findings, no evidence was obtained of any increase in ammonia following the application of electrical pulses to cerebral cortex slices respiring with glucose as substrate. Electrical pulses applied to cerebral cortex slices respiring in eserinized phosphate-glucose saline gave a progressive increase of a substance able to contract frog-rectus and leech muscle. Expressed as acetylcholine, the rate of increase was of the order 0.056 [mu]g/g fresh tissue/minute. In the absence of eserine, electrical pulses brought about a progressive decrease in the combined acetylcholine of cerebral cortex slices (of the order 0.047 [mu]g/g fresh tissue/ minute), reversible on the cessation of applied pulses.