RESUMO
An unanesthetized, isolated, perfused rat brain, consisting of the skull and its contents with nearly all other tissues removed, has metabolic and electrical activity similar to that of the brain of the intact rat with its blood-brain barrier intact. Its use yielded results that are difficult or impossible to obtain from in vitro preparations or in vivo. With the perfused brain it was shown that, mannose can completely replace glucose as metabolic substrate, that insulin has no direct effect on the brain, in the absence of added substrate glutamate is metabolized to aspartate, the brain does not metabolize ethanol, and morphine probably inhibits mitochondrial oxidative activity. Since the use of a perfluoro blood substitute to perfuse the brain avoids the optical interference caused by haemoglobin, it was possible to measure changes in the oxidation-reduction state of NADH by surface fluorometry of the cerebral cortex.