Atropine and Related Compounds on the Metabolism of Electrically Stimulated Sections of Mammalian Cerebral Cortex

Several substances which act on the central nervous system produce large effects on the metabolism of the brain during their action in vivo, but have little effect on the same metabolic processes when these are studied in preparations from the brain in vitro. In recent studies, narcotics and convulsants were shown to behave in this way towards the respiration and lactic acid formation of mammalian brain. It was concluded from this that the effects of the drugs on metabolism in vivo were secondary to effects which they had on functional activities of the brain, such as the transmission of impulses, and were thus likely to be shown only in tissue in a comparable state of activity (Buchel and McIlwain, 1950; Anguiano and McIlwain, 1951).