Suspended Animation: Emergency Preservation & Resuscitation

Cooling Protocol

Target core temperature 37°C

Cooling / rewarming rate 2.0°C/min

Metabolic Q10 coefficient 2.5

Simulation speed 5×

Live Physiology

Core temperature

37.0°C

Metabolic rate

100%

Elapsed (sim time)

0:00

Preservation window

5:00

Cumulative ischemic injury0%

How it works

Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation (EPR) is a real trauma technique: a patient in cardiac arrest from massive blood loss is flushed with ice-cold saline through the aorta, dropping brain/core temperature toward ~10°C in minutes. It does not stop metabolism — it slows it, buying surgeons time that would otherwise not exist. That slowdown follows the Q10 rule for temperature-dependent reaction rates:

R(T) = Q10 ^ ((T - 37) / 10)

R(T)   metabolic rate as a fraction of normal (T in °C)
Q10    how many times slower metabolism gets per 10°C drop (≈2–3 for most enzymes)

Ischemic injury accumulates in proportion to how fast starved cells are still consuming energy, so total damage is the time-integral of the metabolic rate:

dInjury/dt = k · R(T)        Injury reaches 100% ≈ 5 min at 37°C (the "golden minutes")
Window remaining = (100% − Injury) / (k · R(T))

At body temperature the safe no-flow window is only a few minutes. Cooled to ~10°C with a typical Q10 of 2.5, R(T) falls to roughly 8–9% of normal — stretching that same window to nearly an hour, which is close to what the real EPR trial (Samuel Tisherman, University of Maryland) reported. It is not eternal, but it is the actual mechanism behind chasing that goal: suppress the reaction, don't stop the clock.

Target temperature — where the cooling/rewarming loop is driving the core toward.
Cooling rate — how fast the infusion can move core temperature, in °C per simulated minute.
Q10 — patient-to-patient variability in how temperature-sensitive metabolism is.
Simulation speed — this process plays out over tens of minutes in reality; speed it up to watch the full arc.

The glowing points are a simplified cell field across the body: warm/red cells pulse fast (high metabolic demand); as the cooling front reaches them from the heart outward they dim and shift blue, pulsing ever slower.

IRREVERSIBLE INJURY — window exceeded

Warm / high metabolism Cold / dormant

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