Lactate is a common metabolic product of anaerobic glucose metabolism. It can freely pass the blood brain barrier and its known to play also an important role in brain metabolism. We used pharmaco MRI and tested the effect of systemic lactate application on the BOLD signal in primary visual cortex (V1) of anesthetized non-human primates during visual stimulation. We also monitored the pharmacokinetics of the applied lactate in the blood using microdialysis and HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) coupled to MS/MS (mass spectrometry). The lactate pharmacokinetics allows us to investigate the actual plasma concentrations of lactate, and thus, how this correlates to changes in the BOLD signal. After lactate infusion of 0.6 mmol/kg, we observed two consistent effects in the BOLD signal: An initial decrease in visually-induced modulation followed by a subsequent positive baseline shift (n = 10, p < 0.05). The plasma lactate levels significantly increased approximately 9 minutes after systemic application and were correlated with the positive baseline shift in the BOLD signal (p < 0.05). This is in line with a lactate-induced increase of CBF in sensory stimulated regions observe