Preliminary study on the oxygen consumption dynamics during brain hypothermia resuscitation

Based on the classical Pennes bioheat equation and oxygen diffusion equation, a new coupled heat-mass transfer model for characterizing the cerebral circulatory arrest is proposed. Two cooling approaches (the surface cooling and volumetric cooling) are applied to analyze the effect of hypothermia on the transient temperature and the oxygen consumption rate in different regions of brain. It is shown that the surface cooling contributes little to depress the oxygen consumption, which received few attentions before. As an alternative, the volumetric cooling will significantly reduce the oxygen consumption rate in the brain, thus prolong the patients' survival time. The results, which are close in agreement with the previous experimental data, may aid to find more efficient treatments on the brain hypothermia resuscitation.