Traumatic Brain Injury: Study Challenges Typical Treatment for TBI

Neuroscientists at UCLA are suggesting that lactate may be a better replacement "fuel" for the brain in the immediate period after a traumatic brain injury as opposed to glucose, which currently is used. Lactate is best known as being a cause of stiff muscles and fatigue.

Study Challenges Conventional Treatment After Traumatic Brain Injury

Prior work conducted by Dr. Neil Martin, a professor and chief of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Thomas Glenn, a UCLA adjunct assistant professor in the department of neurosurgery, first demonstrated that the brain takes up lactate after traumatic brain injury. Now, using a $275,000 grant, Martin's team of researchers will determine why the brain does this and whether the brain is using lactate to help in recovery. "The prevailing theory for the brain after traumatic injury is that, just as in normal circumstances, glucose is the primary source for energy," Glenn said. "Further, it was thought the brain's metabolic process produces lactate, long considered a harmful waste product of a dysfunctional metabolism, one that causes further cell death via acidosis, an abnormally high buildup of acid in blood and tissue."