Establishment of Modified Brain Death Model in Pig

WAN Chenguang; FENG Xuequan; LI Mu; DU Hongying; ZHANG Weiye; SHI Yuan; LIU Lei; SHEN Zhongyang

doi:10.3969/j.issn.0253-9896.2014.04.009

Abstract：Objective To establish a stable and reliable model of brain death in swine, and to provide a more stable model for investigating pathomorphology in brain tissue and for studying transplantation immunology during brain death. Methods Base on the classic methodology of increasing epidural intracranial pressure, Codman intracranial pressure moni-toring probes were implanted in landrace pigs invasively. According to the relationship between ICP and MAP, brain death models were established by increasing intracranial pressure slowly and intermittently, with real-time monitoring of the intra-cranial pressure. Results Among twelve experimental landrace pigs, one died from anesthetic accident, while the rest elev-en were successfully established as brain death models. With effective respiratory and circulatory support, those brain death models can be maintained for (31.3 ± 4.7) h. Brain death model establishement is a stable and reliable process demonstrated by transcranial Doppler, EEG, ECG, mean arterial blood pressure and other monitoring methods. After brain death is con-firmed, animal models can be maintained for a long time. Conclusion Our methodology of inducing brain death model un-der ICP monitoring is stable and easy to be standardized. It can also provide a more stable model for studying brain tissue pathomorphology and transplantation immunology.