Low temperature preservation and space medicine

Cold maintenance may be an option for compromised space-borne astronauts. Contemporary aneurysm surgery can involve cooling below 20 degrees C for nearly one hour. Dogs and baboons have survived blood-substituted hypothermia for 1-3 hours. Hamsters have recovered from partial-freezing below -1 degree C, and supercooling at -5 degrees C. Laboratory frogs have survived partial-freezing from -9 degrees C, while in nature, frogs may overwinter in these states. While some invertebrates can tolerate freezing to cryogenic temperatures, no vertebrate has survived complete freezing. The following studies (hypothermia and sub-zero experiments) were conducted to explore low temperature preservation of rodents, dogs and baboons.