Response to 'comment on recent modeling studies of astrocyte-neuron metabolic interactions': much ado about nothing

For many years, a tenet of cerebral metabolism held that glucose was the obligate energy substrate of the mammalian brain and that neuronal oxidative metabolism represented the majority of this glucose utilization. In 1994, Pellerin and Magistretti formulated the astrocyte-neuron lactate shuttle (ANLS) hypothesis, in which astrocytes, not neurons, metabolized glucose, with subsequent transport of the glycolytically derived lactate to fuel the energy needs of the neuron during neurotransmission. By considering the concentrations and kinetic characteristics of the nutrient transporter proteins, Simpson et al later supported the opposite view, in which lactate flows from neurons to astrocytes, thus leading to the neuron-astrocyte lactate shuttle (NALS). Most recently, a commentary was published in this journal attempting to discredit the NALS. This challenge has stimulated the present response in which we detail the inaccuracies of the commentary and further model several different possibilities. Although our simulations continue to support the predominance of neuronal glucose utilization during activation and neuronal to astrocytic lactate flow, the most important result is that, regardless of the direction of the flow, the overall contribution of lactate to cerebral glucose metabolism is found to be so small as to make this ongoing debate 'much ado about nothing'. Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism (2011) 31, 1346-1353; doi:10.1038/jcbfm.2011.29; published online 23 March 2011