Chronic Ethanol Exposure Disrupts Lactate and Glucose Homeostasis and Induces Dysfunction of the Astrocyte-Neuron Lactate Shuttle in the Brain.

CIE increases CNS concentrations of glucose and lactate and augments the expression of MCTs. Although we found that chronic lactate injection mimics EtOH-induced increases in CNS lactate and glucose, lactate failed to alter the expression of MCTs. This suggests that although lactate may influence the homeostasis of bioenergetic molecules in the CNS, EtOH-associated increases in lactate are not responsible for increased MCT expression.