Protection against hypoxia-induced lethality in mice: a comparison of the effects of hypothermia and drugs.

The role of hypothermia in the antihypoxic effects of drugs was examined in the present experiments. The effects of environmentally induced hypothermia and drugs were tested by exposing mice to 100% nitrogen gas for 80 sec and counting the number of survivors. In a series of 68 vehicle control groups, the mean of mice surviving the test was 8.6% (SEM = 1.4). Hypothermia induced by lowering the ambient temperature or by isolating mice for a brief period increased the number surviving hypoxia, and the per cent of animals surviving was linearly related to body temperature. When the effects of drugs were compared to that of hypothermia, several drugs were found which protected mice from hypoxia to a greater extent than hypothermia alone. Active substances included the anticonvulsant drugs phenobarbital, phenytoin, carbamazepine and diazepam, but not primidone. Physostigmine and the muscarinic agonist oxotremorine also caused significant protection, while the effects of nicotine could be completely accounted for by hypothermia. Arecoline had a biphasic, time-dependent effect that may be explained by a combination of muscarinic and nicotinic actions. The effects of the muscarinic agonists are centrally mediated, since they could be blocked by low doses of scopolamine HCl, but not by the quaternary analog scopolamine methyl nitrate. Furthermore, the antihypoxic effect of physostigmine was not mimicked by the peripherally acting acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, neostigmine. These results suggest that some drugs do have protective effects against hypoxia which are independent of drug-induced hypothermia and that these effects may be mediated through the CNS.