SummaryFive-day-old infant rats which acquire Haemophilus intluenzae b bacteremia and meningitis after intranasal inoculation have a transient depression in weight gain (2 days), but then continue to grow at the same rate as strain U-ll inoculated controls. Brain lactate, glucose, and glycogen concentrations increase during the first 5 days of disease in infected animals. The increase in brain glycogen can be accounted for by an influx of glycogen containing polymorphonuclear leukocytes. The increased concentrations of glucose and lactate were found not to be due to a change in brain weight to dry weight ratio or the volume of entrapped blood. The mean cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) glucose concentration was higher in animals with meningitis (2.7 mM) in comparison to U-ll inoculated controls (1.8 mM). This increase in brain and CSF glucose concentration appeared secondary to an increased brain uptake of hexoses as manifested by an increased [3Hlmannitol uptake. Brain lactate accumulation was not explicable from the data available. There was no evidence of cerebral cortical ceUular damage because in vitro oxygen uptake and lactate production were equivalent in control and meningitic animals. The ability of the infant rat brain to maintain cerebral adenosine triphosphate (ATP) content in meningitis and the failure of CSF glucose concentration to decrease might be a reflection of the importance of alternative oxidative substrate (e.g., ,8-hydroxybutyrate) to the cerebral metabolism of the developing rat brain. Speculation iology of postmeningitic central nervous system sequelae is poorly understood.Hypoglycorrachia is observed in patients with pyogenic meningitis. Its mechanism is unclear, but it has been suggested that it results from abnormal cerebral glucose metabolism (23). In dogs with experimental pneumococcal meningitis the passive diffusion of mannitol from blood into CSF was increased 16-fold; however, net facilitated inward diffusion of 3-0-methylglucose was decreased, as was 3-0-methylglucose efflux. The methods used did not permit net balance studies, but the role of the brain in regulating CSF glucose concentration was not excluded. Because hypoglycemia or subarachnoid hemorrhage can be associated with abnormal cerebral glucose metabolism and is associated with permanent neurologic sequelae, we investigated cerebral carbohydrate metabolism in infant rats with H. injluenzae meningitis.These studies utilized an experimental model of H. injluenzae, type b, meningitis in infant rats in which the infection is produced by noninvasive intranasal inoculation of bacteria (27). The occurrence of meningitis can be predicted by the presence of bacteremia 48 hr postinoculation at a density of> 10 4 colony-forming units/rnl (26). In this model the histopathologic characteristics and CSF inflammatory response simulate those occurring in the human (26,27). In addition, postmeningitic survivors show a decreased rate of acquisition of operant conditioning (42) and decreased synaptogenesis and dendritic arborization (5). This...