Metabolic Plasticity of a Developing and Aging Brain

Abstract

Brain plasticity is a fundamental phenomenon based on various types of intercellular interactions (synaptic activity, neuritogenesis, synaptogenesis and elimination of synapses, neuron-glia interactions), development, differentiation, migration of newly-born cells and cell death (neurogenesis/gliogenesis and neuronal or glial cell death, angiogenesis and regression of cerebral microvessels), adaptation of tissue metabolism to changing environmental conditions. In this review, we discuss our own data and available literature in the context of regulation of certain types of energy metabolism (glycolysis, mitochondrial respiration) in neuronal, glial, and endothelial cells, the signaling functions of metabolites in nervous tissue, the mechanisms of establishment of cerebral insulin resistance, pseudohypoxia and associated neuroinflammation in brain pathology, as well as some prospects for detecting novel molecular markers of pathobiochemical processes associated with impaired metabolic plasticity in the developing and aging brain.