In recent years much progress has been made in the field of neurochemical monitoring for the acutelly injured brain. The development of safe continuous microdialysis techniques coupled with microanalytical methodology can generate semi-continuous time profiles of the changes in numerous brain analytes such as lactate, glucose, pyruvate, excitatory amino acids, structural amino acids, indicators of free radical generation, cytokines, adenosine, and neuroprotective drugs. Descriptive studies have shown profound, prolonged, and severe abnormalities in many of the analytes measured and the next...