Stroke or spinal cord injury can cause nerve cells to receive excessive stimulation, which ultimately damages and even kills them. This process is known as excitotoxicity, and it is one of the reasons why time following such trauma is critical, while it also implicated in progressive neurodegenerative diseases, e.g. Alzheimer’s disease.
A team of scientists led by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) has now discovered that lactate, which is produced in the brain and even muscles after intense exercise, can be used to protect neurons against excitotoxicity.
Following acute trauma such as a stroke or spinal cord injury, a certain type of receptors go into overdrive and overwhelm the target neuron with a barrage of electrical signals. This causes a build-up of calcium ions inside the neuron, which triggers toxic biochemical pathways that ultimately damage or kill it.
Read the rest of this great article here: Exercise Waste Product Shields Neurons From Trauma Damage
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Author: brokenbrilliant
I am a long-term multiple (mild) Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI or TBI) survivor who experienced assaults, falls, car accidents, sports-related injuries in the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. My last mild TBI was in 2004, but it was definitely the worst of the lot.
I never received medical treatment for my injuries, some of which were sports injuries (and you have to get back in the game!), but I have been living very successfully with cognitive/behavioral (social, emotional, functional) symptoms and complications since I was a young kid. I’ve done it so well, in fact, that virtually nobody knows that I sustained those injuries… and the folks who do know, haven’t fully realized just how it’s impacted my life.
It has impacted my life, however. In serious and debilitating ways. I’m coming out from behind the shields I’ve put up, in hopes of successfully addressing my own (invisible) challenges and helping others to see that sustaining a TBI is not the end of the world, and they can, in fact, live happy, fulfilled, productive lives in spite of it all.
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Broken Brain - Brilliant Mind 
I struggle with calling my condition an actual ‘Stroke’ because there is the assumption a stroke is caused by hard living, drugs or alcohol. And mine is from none of these…….but when I can’t be bothered to explain? “stroke! I had a stroke!” You bet it’s what I say……..
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