Autoradiographic maps of regional brain glucose consumption in resting, awake rats using [ 14 c] 2‐deoxyglucose

The 2‐deoxy‐D‐[ 14 C]‐glucose (2‐DG) autoradiographic method for determining regional brain glucose consumption has been applied successfully by a number of workers for mapping the alterations of brain glucose consumption which occur in association with experimental alterations of brain functional activity. This paper provides a framework for the interpretation of these and further studies by presenting: (1) the pattern of regional brain glucose consumption in the normal, resting, awake rat; (2) the anatomical identities of brain structures which on autoradiographs appear only as regional variations of optical density. For this purpose, a series of 2‐DG autoradiographs of coronal brain sections from an injected animal is compared with adjacent labeled Nissl sections.