Capacity of Brain Cooling Via Ventilating Oxygen at Low Temperature Over Respiratory Tract

Cerebral hypothermia is a rather useful way to improve outcome after brain injury. In this paper, the capacity of cooling oxygen ventilation (COV) during cerebral circulation arrest was theoretically evaluated. A transient two-dimensional mathematical model for the heat and water vapor transport through the respiratory tract of human body was established to predict the temperature response of the brain tissue. Calculation results indicate that COV will help in some extent to reduce the inner temperature of patient brain subject to cerebral circulation arrest. However, its capacity on lowering the deep brain temperature is very limited. Therefore more powerful cooling strategies should be investigated to realize an efficient cooling on the target cerebral tissue.