Brain phospholipid metabolism turnover

This critical review describes an experimental method and mathematical model to quanfily in vivo incorporation rates, half-lives, and turnover rates of FAs into brain phospholipids. FA incorporation is independent of cerebral blood flow and is thus a direct measure of brain phospholipid metabolism. Because specific FAs enter specific phospholipids at stereospecific positions, a combination of saturated and polyunsaturated FA labels can he used to investigate the active participation of phospholipids in brain signal transduction, membrane remodeling, and neuroplasticity. 

Before 1940 it was generally considered that phosphohpids, once laid down in the nervous system of mammals during growth and development, were comparatively static entities. However, later studies using (32p)oithophosphate showed that brain phospholipids as a whole are metabolically active in vivo (Ansell and Dohmen, 1957, Crokin and Sun, 1978). In the present study, by following the changes in phospholipid fatty acid composition, we have demonstrated that an n-3 fatty acid-enriched diet can rapidly reverse a severe n-3 fatty acid deficiency in the brains of primates. The phospholipid fatty acids of the cerebral cortex of juvenile monkeys are in adynamic state and are subject to continuous turnover under certain defined conditions. 

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