Pharyngeal selective brain cooling improves neurofunctional and neurocognitive outcome after fluid percussion brain injury in rats.

Abstract Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) after cardiac arrest reduces mortality and improves neurological outcome. Experimental TH after traumatic brain injury (TBI) indicated similar effects, but benefits were not reproducible in large clinical trials. Therefore, a novel approach of pharyngeal selective brain cooling (pSBC) was tested in respect to neurological outcome in a model of experimental TBI. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to lateral fluid percussion (LFP) brain injury and received pSBC for 3 h post-injury. All animals were examined for neuromotor and sensorimotor dysfunction and coordination: before and after injury, and during recovery on day post-injury (DPI) 7 and 14 using (i) the standardized Composite Neuroscore (NS) test and (ii) the Rotarod test. Recovery of cognitive function was assessed on days 10–14 using (iii) the Barnes Circular Maze (BCM). In pSBC-animals, brain temperature was selectively lowered to 33 ± 0.5°C at 15 min post-injury, keeping rectal temperature at a physiologi...