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TH is the practice of cooling body or brain temperature in order to preserve the viability and function of the organ/system1,2. The role of hypothermia in neuroprotection has been investigated and has shown benefits in a range of pre-clinical models of neurological diseases such as stroke3, subarachnoid hemorrhage4, and traumatic brain injury5. In terms of clinical applications, TH has shown efficacy in patients post-cardiac arrest and in neonatal hypoxic-ischemic injury6.
TH induction is achieved using either surface or endovascular cooling methods. The majority of pre-clinical hypothermia studies perform surface cooling by applying water or ethanol to the animal's fur, or by using a cooling blanket to achieve target temperature1. In humans, systemic surface cooling is achieved by using ice packs and cooling blankets7,8. More rapid cooling has been shown in patients using endovascular methods, which couple an induction infusion of cold saline through an intravenous or intra-arterial catheter, with the placement of an endovascular cooling device within the inferior vena cava9,10. For example, a moderate target temperature of 33 °C can be reached in 1.5 h with endovascular cooling compared to 3-4 h with surface cooling in patients11. The endovascular approach has also become more popular in recent years because it has been reported to reduce some of the side effects seen in systemic surface cooling, such as shivering12,13. The European multicenter, randomized phase III clinical trial of hypothermia for ischemic stroke (EUROHYP-1) used mostly surface cooling14. Results recently published from this trial showed that shivering was a major complication and might have limited the ability to achieve the target temperature10. The shivering response is known to be primarily driven by skin temperature. Some efforts have been made to develop a rodent endovascular cooling method15, but the highly invasive nature of the technique compared to that used in humans, risks confounding any results obtained from that model.
Temperature is the key modulator of biological processes in the body and is tightly regulated by homeostasis. Therefore, any manipulation of the body temperature can have associated risks. Cooling duration is a factor that may have limited the success of hypothermia clinical trials. These trials use a long-duration cooling method, with many maintaining hypothermia from 24-72 h11. This extended duration poses a risk for infection during the cooling protocol. Pneumonia is the most common complication from hypothermia, affecting between 40-50% of patients who undergo the procedure13. This is in contrast to what is normally seen in animal studies of hypothermia where a short-duration paradigm is used (1-6 h)3. The success of these pre-clinical animal studies will likely result in the adaptation of short-duration hypothermia for the use in clinical trials. As a result, it is necessary to have an animal model of short-duration hypothermia that resembles the cooling rates of future clinical trials. Further details pertaining to other temperature parameters and the validity of short-duration hypothermia have been discussed in several review articles1,16,17,18.
Demonstrated here is a gradual model of cooling that is more clinically achievable than current experimental hypothermia models. This novel method has a much slower rate of cooling and therefore, the time to target temperature is closer to the range of those seen in clinical trials of hypothermia11. It also avoids direct surface cooling, which has specific physiological effects, and may, therefore, be more comparable to endovascular cooling, which has been the most commonly used cooling method in clinical trials9,12. This model allows animals to be cooled gradually over 2 h followed by a short period of maintenance at target temperature. Additionally, the rapid cooling short-duration hypothermia method19 is also demonstrated. The fast-cooling method allows target temperature to be achieved rapidly after hypothermia onset. While this approach is not as clinically relevant as the gradual cooling method, it is useful for studies that aim to explore the mechanisms of hypothermia neuroprotection to potentially mimic its powerful neuroprotective effects pharmacologically. This method also has potential applications outside of neuroscience and could be adapted to any number of pre-clinical studies. Another advantage of both methods compared to other approaches is that they are inexpensive and do not require specialist equipment. Finally, this protocol also demonstrates implantation of temperature dataloggers, since post-operative warming and monitoring thereof are important to prevent inadvertent post-operative hypothermia, with its potential to confound study results20.