Question

2. How many metabolic pathways are used by astrocytes in the central nervous system? Describe them.

3. What factors can determine or affect mitochondrial metabolism in the central nervous system?

Answer 1

2). The energy metabolism in the astrocytes is primarily anaerobic, and glycolysis and net lactate extrusion are the primary means of ATP production, while the neurons primarily require the aerobic metabolism (occurs in the mitochondria). The citric acid cycle and the mitochondrial function of the astrocytes are different from the neurons, they mainly focus on synthetic pathways, i.e. removing the citric acid intermediates from the Kreb’s cycle, for example by removing the glutamate from the TCA cycle.