How Does Suspended Animation Work in Living Organisms?
Suspended animation is a method of figuratively postponing life. It is the brief cessation of vital bodily processes when a person is still alive. Clinical studies for this method are being conducted at the Universities of Maryland and Pittsburgh. The name given to this method in the scientific community is "Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation." In a hospital in Pittsburgh, a group of surgeons has just begun testing the EPR approach in clinical settings.
What is Suspended Animation?
Suspended animation is the halting of life processes by exogenous or endogenous mechanisms without putting a stop to actual life. Other involuntary activities like breathing, heartbeat, and others may still exist, but they can only be observed artificially. Because of this, this process has been compared to a sluggish condition in nature, when animals or plants appear to be dead over time but can later wake up or survive without any harm. This has variously been referred to as hibernation, dormancy, or anabiosis (this last in some aquatic invertebrates and plants in scarcity conditions).
Suspended Animation Causes
There are many causes of suspended animation. Some of the causes are given below:
Epilepsy
Head injury
Anaesthesia
Shock
Sunstroke
Snakebite
To slow metabolism
Suspended Animation in Seeds
Suspended animation in seeds is known as dormancy. It is defined as the temporarily stopping or slowing of biological metabolism to preserve energy and food. An embryo encircled in a seed remains suspended until it germinates. A dormant state is essential for plants in adverse conditions to save food and energy. There are various types of seed dormancy in plants. These are physical, physiological, and morphological.
Suspended Animations in Humans
There are many techniques of suspended animation, one of the techniques of suspended animation is by induction of hypothermia. This body is flushed with ice fluids and reduces the temperature of the core body by 10°C. Decrease body temperature, reduce metabolism, and reduce oxygen demand and consumption. This is also a type of human hibernation
Methods of Suspended Animation
Temperature-induced
According to the Arrhenius equation, lowering a substance's temperature decreases its chemical activity. This covers biological functions like metabolism. Cryonics, if ever developed, would be a type of permanent suspended animation.
Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation
Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation (EPR) is a technique for delaying the physiological reactions that, in the event of a serious injury, would result in death. This entails bringing the body temperature down below the current threshold for therapeutic hypothermia, which is 94 °F (34 °C).
Hypothermic Experiments on Animals
By draining the blood from the dogs' bodies and injecting a low-temperature solution into their circulatory systems, scientists at the University of Pittsburgh's Safar Center for Resuscitation Research reported in June 2005 that they had successfully put dogs in suspended animation and brought them back to life, most of them without brain damage. The dogs' blood was put back into their circulatory systems after three hours of being declared clinically dead, and after receiving an electric shock to the heart, the animals were brought back to life. The canines were revived when the heart began pumping blood around the body.
Chemically Induced
To achieve a state of tolerance for the protection-preservation of the entire organism during a circulatory collapse "only by a limited period of one hour," Mark Roth's laboratory at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and organisations like Suspended Animation, Inc. are working to put suspended animation into practice as a medical procedure. The intention is to prevent major harm, including the possibility of brain damage or death until the patient receives professional care.
Important Questions
Can humans go into stasis?
Ans: Yes, a human can go in stasis for 2-4 days.
What is suspended animation used for?
Ans: Suspended animation is used for the preservation of vital organs such as the brain and during cardiac arrest.
Does suspended animation stop ageing?
Ans: No, suspended animation can't stop ageing.
What are the different words used for suspended animation?
Ans: Different words like motionless, cryonics, and deep freezing can be used for suspended animation.
Interesting Facts
In Humans, suspended state can be achieved at 10°C.
It is used to preserve the human brain.
Hydrogen sulphide can also be used for suspended animation.
For hibernation, the oxygen amount decreased.
Practice Questions
What animals can go into suspended animation?
Is human hibernation real?
Is coma a suspended animation?
Summary
In this article, we have discussed about suspended animation, which is a state of temporarily arrest. We have also explained various causes of suspended animation such as head injury, anaesthesia, etc, suspended animation in seeds which is known as dormancy, suspended animation in humans, and also various methods of suspended animation.
FAQs on Suspended Animation: Definition, Examples, and Applications
1. What is suspended animation in the context of biology?
In biology, suspended animation is the temporary slowing or pausing of an organism's life processes. During this state, vital functions like metabolism, heartbeat, and breathing are reduced to a minimum level to preserve life without terminating it. This condition can be induced artificially for medical purposes or can occur naturally in some organisms to survive extreme environmental conditions.
2. What are some natural examples of suspended animation found in organisms?
Several organisms use natural forms of suspended animation to survive. Key examples include:
- Hibernation: A state of metabolic depression in animals like bears and groundhogs during winter to conserve energy.
- Aestivation: A similar state of dormancy in animals like lungfish and snails to survive hot and dry periods.
- Diapause: A pre-programmed period of suspended development in insects to survive predictable, unfavourable environmental conditions.
- Cryptobiosis: An extreme state seen in organisms like tardigrades (water bears), where metabolic activities become almost undetectable in response to harsh conditions like dehydration or freezing.
3. What are the potential applications of suspended animation in medicine?
The primary medical application is to preserve life during critical situations. This technique, often called therapeutic hypothermia, involves cooling a patient's body to slow metabolic processes. Its potential uses include:
- Giving surgeons more time to operate on patients with severe trauma by temporarily reducing the body's need for oxygen.
- Protecting the brain and other organs from damage due to lack of blood flow (ischemia) during cardiac arrest or complex surgeries.
- Extending the viability of organs for transplantation.
- Potentially enabling long-duration space travel in the future by reducing astronauts' metabolic needs.
4. How does medically induced suspended animation differ from natural hibernation?
While both involve metabolic reduction, they differ in key ways. Hibernation is a natural, internally regulated, and seasonal process where an organism's metabolism slows down significantly but continues to function. In contrast, medically induced suspended animation is an artificial intervention designed to create a much deeper state of stasis, almost pausing all biological functions for a short, critical period. The goal of medical suspension is preservation from acute injury, while hibernation is a long-term survival strategy for predictable environmental changes.
5. What happens at a cellular level when an organism enters a state of suspended animation?
At the cellular level, suspended animation dramatically reduces metabolic activity. The rate of chemical reactions within cells, including cellular respiration, slows down immensely. This drastically lowers the cell's demand for oxygen and nutrients. By inducing hypothermia (lowering body temperature), cellular processes are slowed, which protects the cells from damage that would normally occur from oxygen deprivation (ischemia). This cellular preservation is the core principle that makes suspended animation a viable medical tool.
6. Is suspended animation the same concept as cryonics?
No, they are fundamentally different concepts. Suspended animation refers to temporarily pausing the biological functions of a living organism with the clear intention of revival in the near future. In contrast, cryonics is the speculative practice of preserving a legally deceased person at extremely low temperatures with the unproven hope that future technology might one day restore them to life. Suspended animation is a medical procedure for the living, while cryonics is a post-mortem procedure.
7. What are the biggest challenges or risks in applying suspended animation to humans?
Applying suspended animation to humans is extremely complex and carries significant risks. The main challenges include:
- Cell Damage: Cooling the body too quickly or incorrectly can cause ice crystals to form within cells, leading to irreversible tissue damage.
- Reanimation Injury: The process of rewarming the body and restarting metabolic functions can cause a shock to the system, known as reperfusion injury, when blood flow is restored.
- Oxygen Control: Ensuring that all tissues, especially the sensitive brain tissue, are uniformly protected from oxygen deprivation throughout the process is critical.
- Ethical Concerns: There are significant ethical debates surrounding the procedure, particularly regarding the definition of life and the potential for misuse.
