(13)C-labelled microdialysis studies of cerebral metabolism in TBI patients.

Human brain chemistry is incompletely understood and better methodologies are needed. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) causes metabolic perturbations, one result of which includes increased brain lactate levels. Attention has largely focussed on glycolysis, whereby glucose is converted to pyruvate and lactate, and is proposed to act as an energy source by feeding into neurons’ tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, generating ATP. Also reportedly upregulated by TBI is the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) that does not generate ATP but produces various molecules that are putatively neuroprotective, antioxidant and reparative, in addition to lactate among the end products.