Effectiveness of Therapeutic Hypothermia Using HBN-1 Compared to Forced Hypotermia in Neurobehaviour Improvement after Cardiac Arrest: An Experimental Animal Model Study

Post-cardiac arrest resuscitation commonly leaving neurological defects. Hypothermia is known to affect several physiological aspects of the brain. HBN-1 was developed as an alternative in regulated hypothermia.

To analyze the impact of HBN-1 as regulated hypothermia compared to forced hypothermia on neurobehavior after cardiac arrest in animal models.

A true experimental study, with a controlled group post-test design. On male Wistar-strain rats,after anesthesized, cardiac arrest was carried out using electric current. After ROSC, the rats were randomly divided into normothermia, force hypothermia (ice pack), and regulated hypothermia (HBN-1) group. Therapeutic hypothermia was carried out for 3 hours. The treatment group was returned to the cage and received standard rat food and drink.Neurobehavior was measured by the Rat ND Score on day-7.

The force hypothermia achieved hypothermia was significantly faster than HBN-1 (p=0.01).The hypothermic group showed significantly lower Rat-ND Score than normothermia (p=0.012). The HBN-1 group show lower Rat-ND Score than forced hypothermia, but not statistically significant (p=0.083). There was significant linear correlation between Rat-ND Score and the neuronal cell apoptosis in claustrum (p=0.000), with correlation coefficient of 0.843. The linear graphic analysis showed R²=0.6575.

Hypothermia using HBN-1 show significant decrease in Rat-ND Score. Further research in experimental animals with a larger number of samples and replication needs to be done. The variable that also needs to consider is the safety of using this pharmacological agent.