When was hypothermia first studied in spinal cord injuries?
Dr. Dietrich: We had a very successful clinical trial back in 2000 where we translated rodent studies to man in terms of cardiac arrest. It was very exciting that something you found that beneficial in the laboratory could actually be translated to people. At about that time, we started looking at rat models of spinal cord injury. We have shown that modest hypothermia was protective in cardiac arrest, stroke and traumatic brain injuries. So we started studying the effects of hypothermia after spinal cord injuries and found if we lowered the temperature of the spinal cord after injury, we could actually improve motor function. The rat walked better and also, if you looked at the histopathology of the spinal cord, there was preserved tissue. That was exciting. Several studies were published showing that modest hypothermia benefitted animals after spinal cord injury. More recently, we have attempted to move therapeutic hypothermia to people. The Department of Neurological Surgery here at
