WEDNESDAY, Jan. 21 (HealthDay News) -- The impact of altitude on oxygen supply to the brain may offer an ethical, repeatable and controlled way to study the brain's response to hypoxia due to injury, according to a report published in the February issue of The Lancet Neurology.
Mark H. Wilson, of University College London in the United Kingdom, and colleagues reviewed recent research on the effects of exposure to high altitude, including high altitude headache, acute mountain sickness and high altitude cerebral edema, to ascertain what is now known about the underlying molecular mechanisms, genetics and physiology behind such conditions.
The authors noted the similarity in the physiological processes that occur in high altitude cerebral edema, carbon monoxide, cyanide poisoning and anoxia associated with cardiopulmonary arrest. Because short-duration hypobaric hypoxia can be induced and also reversed, it may be possible to learn more about the brain's responses to hypoxia by studying the brain at altitude, the researchers suggest.
"Investigation of the mechanisms that underlie differences in susceptibility to hypoxia-induced injury, whether they are physiological pathways, such as those that regulate compensatory oxygen delivery, patho-physiological pathways that affect edema formation, or anatomical factors that affect cerebral or cranial compliance, might suggest novel prophylactic or therapeutic targets that are of broad clinical relevance," the authors write.
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