14 DAY TRIAL // One of the harshest side-effects of a stroke or a cardiac arrest is the death of a large number of neurons and glial cells, which can often lead to other, hard-to-treat complications, making recovery long-lasting and painful. Doctors are now working on a new way of preventing that from happening, and, while the new method does not address the underlying issue – the damage to the heart – it does help reduce some of its effects.
A University of Edinburgh PhD student from the UK is currently testing a “brain-cooling” helmet that works by inducing a mild state of hypothermia to patients.
Taking the old principle of applying cold bandages to the head in order to relieve headaches a few steps further, Bridget Harris, the researcher behind this initiative, devised a helmet of sorts that takes advantage of the intricate network of blood vessels on the scalp, which regularly transport blood to the brain.
She argues that cooling the blood before it reaches its destination makes the temperature of the brain go down by as much as 4 °C, to an average level of 33 °C.
This makes neurons take in less oxygen, which is crucial in the first 24 hours after a patient suffered from cardiac arrest or stroke. Doctors have known this for a very long time, and have used cooling blankets on people, to keep their core temperatures low. But this has side-effects, as bodies do not handle this kind of treatment well. The brain helmet keeps the treatment local, for maximum effect.
Other than using cool air streams, as Harris' device does, other doctors also advocate the use of the nose as a conduit for lowering brain temperatures, saying that this is one of the main reasons people grew them in the first place.
Allan Rozenberg, a representative of San Diego, California-based company BeneChill explains that "The nasal cavity is filled with a mass of blood vessels that warm incoming air. Arteries carrying blood to the brain pass in close proximity to this mesh of capillaries, so cooling the nasal cavity also cools the blood that reaches the brain."
No matter how advanced the technology, they key to any of these systems working is a fast response time, meaning that the procedure works best if applied to the patient as soon as possible, after the stroke occurred. According to doctors, people should wear the helmet for about a day, in order to prevent neurons from dying and releasing dangerous toxins within this time frame.