BRAIN TEMPERATURE CALCULATIONS FOR SWINE USING EXPERIMENTAL MEASUREMENTS OF CEREBRAL BLOOD FLOW

Abstract

In this study, numerical simulations are performed to analyze the brain temperature reduction in swine during selective head cooling, whole body cooling or while the animals experience ischemia. Brain temperature is calculated using a time dependent thermal model that incorporates available experimental measurements of the rectal temperature, the cerebral blood flow and the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen consumption.The calculated temperature distribution is validated against the in vivo temperature measurements recorded during the different experiments. These comparisons help to better understand the relations between brain temperature, blood flow and metabolic activity, which are essential to successfully apply hypothermia in the treatment of brain injury.The calculations presented here reproduce the temperature behavior observed in all the experiments considered. It is observed that the arterial temperature and the cerebral metabolic rate are important parameters that affect the deep tissue temperature. It is also concluded that the accurate knowledge of parameters such as the skin and bone thermal conductivity are necessary for effective modeling.