• Suspended animation could soon be reality, trials to begin on 10 human volunteers
    68 replies, posted
[IMG]http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/r/s/727x/assets/images/phpm9hqpx.jpg[/IMG] [QUOTE]This month, the world's first attempts at placing humans in suspended animation using a new technique will take place at the UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- not for space travel, but to save lives.The technique will initially be used on 10 patients whose wounds would otherwise be lethal in an attempt to buy the surgeons some time. It works, as suggested by science fiction, by cooling the body -- but not by applying an external temperature change. Instead, a team of surgeons will remove all of the patient's blood, replacing it with a cold saline solution. This will cool the body, slowing its functions to a halt and reducing the need for oxygen. Effects similar to this have been seen in accidents: Swedish [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_B%C3%A5genholm"]Anna Bågenholm[/URL] survived trapped under a layer of ice in freezing water for 80 minutes in a skiing accident; Japanese [URL="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6197339.stm"]Mitsutaka Uchikoshi[/URL] survived 24 days without food or water by entering a state of hypothermic hibernation. "We are suspending life, but we don't like to call it suspended animation because it sounds like science fiction," Doctor Samuel Tisherman, the surgeon who will lead the trial, [URL="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129623.000-gunshot-victims-to-be-suspended-between-life-and-death.html"]told[I]New Scientist[/I][/URL]. "So we call it emergency preservation and resuscitation."The technique was developed by Doctor Peter Rhee, who successfully managed to test it on pigs [URL="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039606002000855"]in the year 2000[/URL]. In 2006, Dr Rhee and his colleagues [URL="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16456447"]published the results of their subsequent research[/URL]. After inducing fatal wounds in the pigs by cutting their arteries with scalpels, the team replaced the pigs' blood with saline, which lowered their body temperature to 10 degrees Celsius. All of the control pigs, whose body temperature was left alone, died. The pigs who were resuscitated at a medium speed demonstrated a 90 percent survival rate, although some of their hearts had to be given a jump start. Afterwards, the pigs demonstrated no physical or cognitive impairment.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.cnet.com/news/suspended-animation-trials-to-begin-on-humans/[/url] Yay for science!
Wow. Replacing blood with cooled saline solution. I probably wouldn't want to be one of the test subjects for this, but all power to them!
Whoa, that's fucking scary. I assume they use saline solution because it doesn't freeze, to prevent ice crystals from forming?
Can I take part in this too? They should wake me up when HL3 comes out.
[QUOTE=Desuh;44913968]Can I take part in this too? They should wake me up when HL3 comes out.[/QUOTE] don't think it's designed to keep you like that for thousands of years
[QUOTE=PaperBurrito;44913954]Whoa, that's fucking scary. I assume they use saline solution because it doesn't freeze, to prevent ice crystals from forming?[/QUOTE] It does freeze, just not at the same temperature as water, but yes.
That's insane. Do we know how long you could last like this? Would you eventually give out and die after a few days?
So when's the funeral then.
Sounds cool! Also sounds like a death sentence.
[QUOTE=Problem;44914080]Sounds cool! Also sounds like a death sentence.[/QUOTE] If the injuries you sustain now mean a death sentence, isn't trying this as a last ditch effort better than nothing?
[QUOTE=Hardsurface;44913953]Wow. Replacing blood with cooled saline solution. I probably wouldn't want to be one of the test subjects for this, but all power to them![/QUOTE] So it's just chilled saltwater? That sounds pretty dangerous if that's ALL it is. If you're going to replace a person's blood with a different substance, it needs to have an oxygen carrier present in the liquid, even if super-slowed functions lower the need for oxygen. Even adding just a small amount of Oxycyte to the concoction would make it suitable for purpose, not just for putting patients on ice, but for putting space-travellers on ice too.
Next we'll get phallic monsters, correct?
[QUOTE=Cabbage;44913991]That's insane. Do we know how long you could last like this? Would you eventually give out and die after a few days?[/QUOTE] I heard about this a few months ago. its supposed to be used in hospitals to save a patient in critical condition. it can only suspend you for a few hours before you die
[QUOTE=ironman17;44914137]So it's just chilled saltwater? That sounds pretty dangerous if that's ALL it is. If you're going to replace a person's blood with a different substance, it needs to have an oxygen carrier present in the liquid, even if super-slowed functions lower the need for oxygen. Even adding just a small amount of Oxycyte to the concoction would make it suitable for purpose, not just for putting patients on ice, but for putting space-travellers on ice too.[/QUOTE] I'm sure they've thought of that. The article says they did it on pigs and, when they survived 75% of the time, there was no long term damage. That's compared to the 0% who survived when they didn't use the freezing technique.
[QUOTE=Cabbage;44913991]That's insane. Do we know how long you could last like this? Would you eventually give out and die after a few days?[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure it's so they can perform emergency surgery that would normally lead to brain death without the brain death.
[QUOTE=ironman17;44914137]So it's just chilled saltwater? That sounds pretty dangerous if that's ALL it is. If you're going to replace a person's blood with a different substance, it needs to have an oxygen carrier present in the liquid, even if super-slowed functions lower the need for oxygen. Even adding just a small amount of Oxycyte to the concoction would make it suitable for purpose, not just for putting patients on ice, but for putting space-travellers on ice too.[/QUOTE] The guy has a team of researchers and he's published papers on the subject. I think he knows what he's doing.
[QUOTE=ironman17;44914137]So it's just chilled saltwater? That sounds pretty dangerous if that's ALL it is. If you're going to replace a person's blood with a different substance, it needs to have an oxygen carrier present in the liquid, even if super-slowed functions lower the need for oxygen. Even adding just a small amount of Oxycyte to the concoction would make it suitable for purpose, not just for putting patients on ice, but for putting space-travellers on ice too.[/QUOTE] i think im going to trust the scientists with this one
[QUOTE=PaperBurrito;44913954]Whoa, that's fucking scary. I assume they use saline solution because it doesn't freeze, to prevent ice crystals from forming?[/QUOTE] It's probably also so that there's no difference in water potential between the solution and their tissues. If they used pure water, then that water would move into the tissues as the water potential is lower in the tissues due to all the dissolved ions, amino acids etc. You don't want that, as it messes up some of the chemical reactions and can cause cells to swell up. So that solution should have a similar concentration to the fluid in the rest of the body to avoid that, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong someone, I'm only doing AS biology :v:
[QUOTE=ironman17;44914137]So it's just chilled saltwater? That sounds pretty dangerous if that's ALL it is. If you're going to replace a person's blood with a different substance, it needs to have an oxygen carrier present in the liquid, even if super-slowed functions lower the need for oxygen. Even adding just a small amount of Oxycyte to the concoction would make it suitable for purpose, not just for putting patients on ice, but for putting space-travellers on ice too.[/QUOTE] "What is an IV?"
[QUOTE=a dumb bear;44914258]It's probably also so that there's no difference in water potential between the solution and their tissues. If they used pure water, then that water would move into the tissues as the water potential is lower in the tissues due to all the dissolved ions, amino acids etc. You don't want that, as it messes up some of the chemical reactions and can cause cells to swell up. So that solution should have a similar concentration to the fluid in the rest of the body to avoid that, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong someone, I'm only doing AS biology :v:[/QUOTE] I have an understanding of osmosis and I think your explanation makes sense.
[QUOTE=a dumb bear;44914258]It's probably also so that there's no difference in water potential between the solution and their tissues. If they used pure water, then that water would move into the tissues as the water potential is lower in the tissues due to all the dissolved ions, amino acids etc. You don't want that, as it messes up some of the chemical reactions and can cause cells to swell up. So that solution should have a similar concentration to the fluid in the rest of the body to avoid that, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong someone, I'm only doing AS biology :v:[/QUOTE] You've got the right idea actually, there's nothing wrong with that post. It's pretty much to maintain isotonic balance, which is the same principle behind the use of various IV fluids. Also the first thing I thought of when I read the thread was Semirhage attempting a similar method, and killing people painfully via those experiments.
[quote]"We are suspending life, but we don't like to call it suspended animation because it sounds like science fiction," [/quote] Not gonna stop the sensationalist headlines, like this one :v:
[QUOTE=a dumb bear;44914258]It's probably also so that there's no difference in water potential between the solution and their tissues. If they used pure water, then that water would move into the tissues as the water potential is lower in the tissues due to all the dissolved ions, amino acids etc. You don't want that, as it messes up some of the chemical reactions and can cause cells to swell up. So that solution should have a similar concentration to the fluid in the rest of the body to avoid that, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong someone, I'm only doing AS biology :v:[/QUOTE] According to some hear say, that I can't back up, I hear that Saline reacts with the body pretty great, as in barely at all. I've read a thread on those people injecting saline into their foreheads and someone mentioned how the only danger was them looking incredibly stupid.
[QUOTE=Novangel;44914840]Not gonna stop the sensationalist headlines, like this one :v:[/QUOTE] It's semantics dude, they're not calling it suspended animation because of sentimental shit. That doesn't make it sensationalist at all.
Life Suspension sounds awesome.
But does it preserves the body just as it does in ice?
My old man said that when he was a medic in the army, if someone was losing a lot of blood they used to pump them full of saline to keep them stable until they got to somewhere that actually had blood to transfuse them with.
[QUOTE=Camundongo;44916591]My old man said that when he was a medic in the army, if someone was losing a lot of blood they used to pump them full of saline to keep them stable until they got to somewhere that actually had blood to transfuse them with.[/QUOTE] That was for different reasons. Even with greatly reduced RBC counts you will survive longer than if you lost an equivalent amount in blood. So they pumped them with saline to keep their blood pressure at a level where the body can absorb enough oxygen from what little red blood cells are still available. Zonesylvania is free to correct me, since i'm no doctor and IIRC he is.
[QUOTE=zombini;44916859]That was for different reasons. Even with greatly reduced RBC counts you will survive longer than if you lost an equivalent amount in blood. So they pumped them with saline to keep their blood pressure at a level where the body can absorb enough oxygen from what little red blood cells are still available. Zonesylvania is free to correct me, since i'm no doctor and IIRC he is.[/QUOTE] Well, yeah, I wasn't suggesting the British Army were experimenting with suspended animation at dressing stations in the 1980's :v: I was just saying saline can be used as a temporary blood substitute.
[quote] In 2006, Dr Rhee and his colleagues published the results of their subsequent research. After inducing fatal wounds in the pigs by cutting their arteries with scalpels, the team replaced the pigs' blood with saline, which lowered their body temperature to 10 degrees Celsius. All of the control pigs, whose body temperature was left alone, died. [/quote] Did they really need a control in this experiment?
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