Hibernation Induction Trigger
Hibernation induction trigger (HIT) is a bit of misnomer. Although research in the 90's hinted at the ability to induce torpor in animals by injection of blood taken from a hibernating animal, further research has been unable to reproduce this phenomena. Despite the inability to induce torpor, there are substances in hibernator blood that can lend protection to organs for possible transplant. Researchers were able to prolong the life of an isolated pig's heart with a HIT . This may have potentially important implications for organ transplant, as it could allow organs to survive for up to 18 or more hours, outside the human body. This would be a great improvement from the current 6 hours.
This supposed HIT is a mixture derived from serum, including at least one opioid-like substance. DADLE is an opioid that in some experiments has been shown to have similar functional properties.
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Famous quotes containing the words hibernation and/or induction:
“The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“They relieve and recommend each other, and the sanity of society is a balance of a thousand insanities. She punishes abstractionists, and will only forgive an induction which is rare and casual.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)