Hibernation for space travel is possible.

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Imagine that the human body had a hidden button capable of slowing down almost everything, breathing, heartbeat, energy consumption, temperature, not like in science fiction movies, but as a real biological mechanism. This is proposed by scientists from Harvard University because they identified a specific group of neurons in the brain capable of inducing a deep state of Lethargy, a condition in which metabolism and body temperature drop drastically for long periods.

The study led by the Brazilian researcher Natália Machado and published in the journal Nature showed that these neurons are in the hypothalamus, more precisely in the median preoptic nucleus and has a curious characteristic, the same set of cells manages to control two completely opposite states, when these neurons are inhibited, the body goes into fever, when they are activated, the organism goes into torpor.

During this state, mice reduced metabolism by up to 80%, it is as if the body went into extreme savings mode, instead of fighting to maintain temperature, movement and activity, you will preserve energy and this completely changes what we understand about the limits of human physiology, today in medicine it already uses something called therapeutic hypothermia in some cases such as after cardiac arrest or brain injuries.

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But the previous technique has important limitations, the cooling is small, it can cause intense tremors and brings risks such as cardiac instability, the big difference of this new discovery is that, by directly activating the neurons responsible for Lethargy, the body reduces the temperature without triggering the defense mechanisms that would normally try to warm it up again, that is, it is not forcing the body to cool down, it is convincing it to cool down.

This opens enormous doors for medical applications, in a CBA, for example, reducing metabolism can allow brain tissue to tolerate the lack of oxygen for longer, increasing the window for intervention, but there is another field that observes this discovery with special attention, space exploration, trips to Mars can last about 1000 days, considering the trip, stay and return.

Keeping a human being fully active for all that time requires enormous amounts of food, oxygen, water and energy. If it were possible to induce controlled periods of torpor in humans, resource consumption would fall drastically. It would not be hibernation like in the movies, it would be a biologically induced, reversible and monitored state.

Researchers are now trying to identify circulating molecules such as hormones or peptides capable of activating that system without invasive interventions in the brain.

Study Source

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Hibernation for space travel is possible.