The Hypoxic Brain

While high altitude mountain climbers know that the human brain can eventually adjust to low oxygen levels, sadly the same is not true in the clinical setting. Within minutes of a stroke or heart failure, delicate neural tissue is already beginning to shut down as the processes that initially protected the brain begin to fail and irreversible damage ensues. But not all creatures suffer such drastic consequences as tissue oxygen levels fall; several species of turtle and fish can survive lengthy periods of oxygen deprivation, emerging unscathed. The mechanisms that protect these hypoxia tolerant creatures don’t fail, and Peter Lutz is optimistic that understanding how protective mechanisms differ between vulnerable and tolerant animals could eventually help clinicians design new therapies based on naturally tolerant organisms. Teaming up with Bob Boutilier, Lutz realised that the time was ripe to bring together a collection of review articles discussing the hypoxic brain and mechanisms of tolerance from an integrative perspective, ranging from creatures that survive truly anoxic environments and the adaptations that protect them, through to the hypoxic brain in a clinical context.