Ultrasound brain pulses place mice in a hibernation-like state | Science

It is a classic science fiction trope: Astronauts on an interstellar journey are kept in sleek, refrigerated pods in a state of suspended animation. Despite the fact that such pods stay purely fictional, scientists have pursued study into inducing a hibernation-like state in humans to lessen the harm triggered by healthcare circumstances such as heart attacks and stroke, and to minimize the anxiety and fees of future extended-distance space sojourns.

In a study published these days in Nature Metabolism, scientists report that they can trigger a related state in mice by targeting element of their brain with pulses of ultrasound. Some specialists are calling it a key technical step toward attaining this feat in humans, whereas other people say it is a stretch to extrapolate the benefits to our species.  

“It is an awesome paper,” says Frank van Breukelen, a biologist who research hibernation at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and co-authored an editorial accompanying the study. The operate builds on a flurry of current research that pinpoint certain populations of neurons in a area known as the preoptic region (POA) of the hypothalamus. These cells act like an on-off switch for “torpor”—a sluggish, power-saving state the animals enter when they’re dangerously cold or malnourished. In prior research, scientists genetically engineered these neurons to respond to light or specific chemical compounds, and located they could result in mice to enter a torpid state even when they had been warm and effectively-fed. Such invasive procedures cannot be simply translated to people today, having said that, Breukelen notes. “That’s seriously not going to take place in people today.”

The new ultrasound study, led by bioengineer Hong Chen and her group at Washington University in St. Louis expected no genetic engineering. Chen knew from prior study that some neurons have specialized pores known as TRPM2 ion channels that modify shape in response to ultrasonic waves, like the subset of POA cells that controls mouse torpor. To see what impact that had on the animals’ behavior, her group subsequent glued miniature, speakerlike devices on the heads of mice to concentrate these waves on the POA.

In response to a series of three.two-megahertz pulses, the rodents’ core physique temperatures dropped by about 3°C. The mice cooled off by shifting physique heat into their tails—a classic sign of torpor, Bruekelen notes—and their heart prices and metabolisms slowed. By automatically delivering further pulses of ultrasound when the animals’ physique temperatures started to climb back up, the researchers could hold the mice in this torpid state for up to 24 hours. When they silenced the minispeakers, the mice returned to typical, apparently with no ill consequences.

Chen’s group then repeated the experiment in 12 rats—which do not naturally go into torpor in response to cold or meals scarcity—and located a related impact, though their physique temperatures only dropped by 1°C to 2°C. The researchers say this suggests the method may possibly operate even in animals that do not ordinarily hibernate.

Breukelen says his self-assurance in the team’s benefits is strengthened by the truth that when the researchers directed the ultrasound to other brain regions, the mice didn’t seem to enter a torpid state. That suggests the animals’ lowered metabolism was certainly triggered by stimulating particularly the neurons in the POA, and not basically by “scrambling” brain functioning. “I do not consider everyone desires a therapy that relies on basically turning off the brain, and consequences be damned,” he says. He’s also encouraged that the researchers re-produced the similar impact in rats. Despite the fact that humans do not naturally hibernate, the capability is located in species from practically every single mammalian lineage, from Madagascar’s fat-tailed dwarf lemur to the arctic ground squirrel. Maybe humans, like the rats, also possess a hidden capacity for getting into one thing akin to hibernation, he says.

Other people are not convinced. Shaun Morrison at Oregon Well being &amp Science University doubts the scientists seriously observed torpor in the mice. Ultrasound stimulation warms up the brain, he says, so it is feasible the researchers had been in truth activating temperature-sensitive neurons in that area, causing the animals to decrease their physique temperatures in response. Even if the impact is genuine, he’s skeptical that we’ll be making use of ultrasound to place astronauts into suspended animation anytime quickly. People’s brains are a great deal larger than the brains of mice and the POA is buried deeper, Morrison notes, creating it a great deal far more challenging to target with the minispeakers Chen and her colleagues employed. “This ultrasound method is quite unlikely to operate in humans in the way it does in mice.”