It is well known and researched, that deprivation of oxygen to the brain can quickly result in irreversible damage and death. What is less well known, is that some vertebrate species are exceptionally tolerant of brain hypoxia. The Brain Without Oxygen: Causes of failure - Physiological and molecular mechanisms for survival, Third edition, discusses the mechanisms of brain hypoxia tolerance in these exceptional vertebrates, which include diving marine mammals, high altitude dwellers and the hibernating mammal. Special attention is given to the extraordinary adaptations that allow a few turtle and fish species to tolerate months of brain anoxia. This third, fully updated edition addresses the potential of these animal models as targets for human clinical intervention. Perhaps the most interesting of these, are those involved in the suppression of metabolic activities to new set points well below their normoxic minima or maintenance levels. This volume will be valuable reading for researchers in physiology, medicine and general biological sciences, and of great importance to pharmaceutical companies researching novel models for stroke and brain ischemia.

Research for clinicians and researchers in neurology. New material on the mechanism of brain hypoxia tolerance in some vertebrate species.

Man has conquered Everest, been to the bottom of the deepest ocean, and even walked on the Moon by understanding pressure and oxygen. But the one area of life the technology has not influenced is the practice of medicine. Billions have been spent researching drugs to treat the brain and they have failed; drug companies are closing their neuroscience laboratories. This is because there is no substitute for oxygen. As the most astonishing discovery since DNA was unraveled has shown, oxygen, the gas in the air we all breathe, controls our most important genes. If we are sick or seriously injured and in intensive care, the amount of oxygen we can be given is limited by the weather. Without a simple pressure chamber, we are forced to accept a variation of more than 10% when just 2% more oxygen on the summit of Everest can mean the difference between life and death. We have already engineered the solution; the technology used in aircraft that sustains us flying at 40,000 feet can facilitate medical recovery safely on the ground. This book follows the human journey from conception to old age and presents evidence amassed over more than a century that can transform the care of patients with birth injury, head trauma, multiple sclerosis, stroke, and even reverse decline in old age. There is no more necessary and scientific action than to correct a deficiency of oxygen, especially in the brain and it is simple to give more.

This book discusses the problem of how any interruption in energy supply to the brain of more than a few minutes results in irreversible damage. From a comparative perspective, the book presents the most recent findings concerning the pathological processes occurring in brain hypoxia and discusses in detail the defense mechanisms that allow the brains of a few vertebrate species to survive anoxia for long periods of time. It describes the processes underlying the enhanced hypoxid tolerance shown by the brains of the mammalian neonate, the hibernating mammal and the diving marine mammal. The book identifies the key processes that are protected in anoxia tolerant animals, which allow new insights into the survival hierarchy of the many systems that collapse in the energy-deprived mammalian brain.