![]() In modern times, surgeons use hypothermic states to increase patients' survival rates during heart and brain surgeries.īut whether humans, who do not naturally enter torpor states, can be artificially and safely pushed into them remains an open question. Lerrey packed limbs with ice before amputating them, and noticed that wounded men died quicker by the warmth of the fire than near the cold. ![]() ![]() It was also observed by Napoleon's chief surgeon Baron de Larrey during the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812. In fact, records of the potential medical usefulness of hypothermia, a normally dangerous drop in body temperature, date as far back as ancient Egypt. It's perhaps not surprising, then, that scientists have long been keen to figure out if these benefits could be conferred to humans in critically-injured states, or to people bound on long and lonely flights to distant planets. Torpor's profound physiological changes drastically reduce the energy that animals need to survive. In fact, so few unconscious functions are performed during torpid periods that many hibernating animals have to periodically awaken to catch some proper sleep. They slow their heart rates from hundreds of beats per minute to a mere handful breathe once every ten minutes or more and dim their brain activity until it is undetectable. During hibernation (a voluntary act prepared for ahead of time) animals string together multiple bouts of torpid states. While in a torpid state, an animal's body temperature and heart rate drop dramatically and its blood flows slower. When food is scarce or the weather too cold, some mammals, birds, insects, amphibians and fish preserve their energy by involuntarily entering a state known as torpor, a mysterious and temporary condition marked by a drastically-reduced metabolism.
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