Ketosis and brain handling of glutamate, glutamine, and GABA
Open accessAbstract
Summary: We hypothesize that one mechanism of the anti‐epileptic effect of the ketogenic diet is to alter brain handling of glutamate. According to this formulation, in ketotic brain astrocyte metabolism is more active, resulting in enhanced conversion of glutamate to glutamine. This allows for: (a) more efficient removal of glutamate, the most important excitatory neurotransmitter; and (b) more efficient conversion of glutamine to GABA, the major inhibitory neurotransmitter.
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A ketogenic diet modulates neurotransmitter levels such as GABA, monoamines and glutamate.
“as well as the modulation of neurotransmitter levels such as GABA, monoamines and glutamate (Hartman et al., 2007;Yudkoff et al., 2008).”
From The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis (2019) · cites this paper as Yudkoff et al., 2008
The Abstract describes a hypothesized ketogenic-diet mechanism involving glutamate removal and conversion of glutamine to GABA, and reports greater GABA synthesis in synaptosomes exposed to acetoacetate. It does not address monoamines, and its proposed mechanism does not establish changes in neurotransmitter levels generally. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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Cites
The ketogenic diet and brain metabolism of amino acids: Relationship to the anticonvulsant effect
Yudkoff, M., Daikhin, Y., Melø, T. M., Nissim, I., Sonnewald, U., & Nissim, I. (2007) · Annual Review of Nutrition · doi:10.1146/annurev.nutr.27.061406.093722 · Cited by 202 · see citing works
Self-citationGlutamine in the central nervous system: function and dysfunction
Albrecht, J. (2007) · Frontiers in Bioscience · doi:10.2741/2067 · Cited by 168 · see citing works
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Research works printed but not linked: 13
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Cryan, J. F., O'Riordan, K. J., Cowan, C. S. M., Sandhu, K. V., Bastiaanssen, T. F. S., Boehme, M., Codagnone, M. G., Cussotto, S., Fulling, C., Golubeva, A. V., et al. (2019) · Physiological Reviews · doi:10.1152/physrev.00018.2018 · Cited by 5,286 · see citing works
- Authors
- Yudkoff, M., Daikhin, Y., Horyn, O., Nissim, I., & Nissim, I.
- Affiliations
- Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (US)
- Venue
- Epilepsia
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2008-11
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- s8
- Pages
- 73-75
- ISSN
- 0013-9580 (ISSN-L)
- 1528-1167
- PMC
- PMC2722878
- OpenAlex
- W2037378977
- Cited by
- 139
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 2.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Epilepsia (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (P01NS054900, NS054900)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P30HD026979, HD 26979)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Diet and metabolism studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Epilepsy research and treatment
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Keywords
- ketogenic diet, ketosis, epilepsy, glutamate, glutamine, GABA, astrocyte metabolism
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Brain, gamma-Aminobutyric Acid, Glutamine, Humans, Ketosis, Glutamic Acid, Diet, Ketogenic
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