Temperature Profile Of the Brain During Suspended Animation

Abstract

In most cases of serious truncal injuries, cardiac arrest occurs within minutes due the severe blood loss. Although many of these injuries are potentially repairable, death is often resulted from fatal brain damage due to insufficient supply of blood. Suspended animation (SA) is a way to preserve the whole organism by lowering brain temperature during prolonged cardiac arrest (often over one hour). A hypothermic flush of cold saline solution is administered through blood vessels to the brain. By lowering the rate of cerebral metabolic activity, damage to the brain is reduced and the brain can be preserved for later cerebral resuscitation. Current studies have focused on animals but no experiment has been implemented on humans yet. In our project, we use GAMBIT and FIDAP to model the temperature profile of the brain during suspended animation. A suitable model of saline flow through blood vessels in the brain is developed to determine how temperature in the outer brain region changes at any given time. From our model, the temperature in the outer brain quickly drops to 8?C after flushing a saline solution of 4?C. While saline is very effective in reducing outer brain temperature, the decrease in brain temperature can be adjusted by using saline solutions of different temperatures