Ashley D. Harris1, Richard A. E. Edden2,3,
Kevin Murphy1, C. John Evans1, Victoria Roberton1,
Danielle Huckle4, Judith E. Hall4, Neeraj Saxena4,
Damian M. Bailey5, Richard G. Wise1
1CUBRIC - School of
Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; 2Russell
H Morgan Department of Radiology & Radiological Science, The Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States; 3FM Kirby
Research Centre for Functional MRI, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD,
United States; 4Department of Anaethetics, Cardiff University,
Cardiff, United Kingdom; 5Department of Health, Sport &
Science, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, United Kingdom
The role of cerebral lactate is unclear, as there is emerging evidence that it is a neural energy source, not just a by-product of anaerobic metabolism. There are also questions about cerebral metabolism during hypoxia, with some groups showing a non-intuitive result of increased cerebral metabolism during hypoxia. Here, the dynamics of lactate during an acute exposure to hypoxia and then return to normoxia are examined in 3 healthy humans with multiple repeat sessions. We show the dynamics and complexities of lactate accumulation.