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Why adrenal medulla can not utilise fatty acids for generation of energy? What could be the benefit for not having ability to use fatty acids?

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JM97
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  • Does it have something to do with feedback mechanism? – JM97 Feb 10 '17 at 07:34
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    Interesting question. Do you have a reference showing that fatty acids cannot be used? The adrenal medulla is basically a specialized nervous tissue, and neurons are usually considered to be unable to oxidize fatty acids, but other cell types in the CNS do oxidize fatty acids, see for example https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/472459/ – Roland Feb 10 '17 at 17:26
  • but the blood brain barrier is not present in adrenal medulla. – JM97 Feb 10 '17 at 23:24
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    I was hoping for a reference to actual experimental data, rather than just somebody else claiming the same thing. I did find some textbooks that repeat this statement (without reference), so perhaps it's valid, but textbooks can also be inaccurate ... Also, the blood-brain barrier does allow fatty acid transport (contrary to statements in some textbooks :), see for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17901540 See also my related question http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/34159/why-is-the-brain-dependent-on-glucose – Roland Feb 11 '17 at 10:22
  • Also, we should consider the possibility that there is no benefit. Some features of biology are not good for the organism, but evolution just hasn't come up with any better solution. – Roland Feb 11 '17 at 10:24

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