Ventricular fibrillation (VF) is an important cause of sudden cardiac arrest following myocardial infarction. Following resuscitation from VF, decreased cardiac contractile function is a common problem. During and following myocardial ischemia, decreased glucose oxidation, increased anaerobic glycolysis for cardiac energy production are harmful and energetically expensive. The objective of the present study is to determine the effects of dichloroacetate (DCA), a glucose oxidation stimulator, on cardiac contractile dysfunction following ischemia-induced VF. Male Sprague-Dawley rat hearts were Langendorff perfused in Tyrode's buffer. Once stabilized, hearts were subjected to 15 min of global ischemia and 5 min of aerobic reperfusion in the presence or absence of DCA. At the 6th min of reperfusion, VF was induced electrically, and terminated. Left ventricular (LV) pressure was measured using a balloon. Pretreatment with DCA significantly improved post-VF left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP) and dp/d t_max. In DCA-pretreated hearts, post-VF lactate production and pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) phosphorylation were significantly reduced, indicative of stimulated glucose oxidation, and inhibited anaerobic glycolysis by activation of PDH. Epicardial NADH fluorescence was increased during global ischemia above preischemic levels, but decreased below preischemia levels following VF, with no differences between nontreated controls and DCA-pretreated hearts, whereas DCA pretreatment increased NADH production in nonischemic hearts. With exogenous fatty acids (FA) added to the perfusion solution, DCA pretreatment also resulted in improvements in post-VF LVDP and dp/d t_max, indicating that the presence of exogenous FA did not affect the beneficial actions of DCA. In conclusion, enhancement of PDH activation by DCA mitigates cardiac contractile dysfunction following ischemia-induced VF.