An intragastric amino acid mixture influences extracellular amino acid profiles in the lateral hypothalamic area of freely moving rats

We tested the effect of equicaloric loads of glucose (0.89 g) or a balanced amino acid mixture (0.85 g) on extracellular amino acid concentrations in the brains of freely moving rats. At 15:30 hours, the microdialysis probe was inserted into the lateral hypothalamic area of ambulatory rats, and food and water were removed. Dialysates were collected every 20 min from 1 h prior to gavage (18:00 hours) and until 3 h after the gavage. Amino acid concentrations in the dialysate were determined by reverse-phase HPLC. Following the amino acid gavage, extracellular amino acid concentrations significantly increased from baseline for alanine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine, threonine, tyrosine, and valine. Those elevations occurred within 20-40 min following the amino acid load, and lasted up to 100 min. After the glucose and water treatments, amino acid concentrations were either not affected or gradually diminished from baseline. We conclude that extracellular amino acid concentration in the lateral hypothalamus is influenced by the composition of food consumed.