Brain Mechanisms in Blood Glucose Mobilization and Absorption: The Role of the Left and the Right Frontal Regions in the Regulatory Control of Blood Glucose Levels

Abstract

With the ravaging effects of glucose related diseases (such as diabetes) on the rise, an increased understanding of the central mechanisms involved in glucose mobilization and absorption, and the potential development of the metabolic syndrome, is becoming increasingly important. Although, substantive efforts have been expended to better understand the peripheral mechanisms involved with the systemic processing of glucose, there remains a paucity of research dedicated to the central neural aspects largely involved in the mobilization and absorption of blood glucose. Despite this lack of research, the relationship between emotional states of anger or fear and those oppositional processes associated with quiescent states or digestive uptake have been clearly related to blood glucose levels.1-3 Moreover, and perhaps most relevant here, is that the differential emotional states just described have been established with origins in cerebral laterality and with regulatory control mechanisms largely relegated to the frontal lobes and executive brain systems.