Role of Sex Steroids in Rehabilitation after Clinical Death (Experimental Study)

Abstract

Objective: to study the plasma levels of steroid hormones and the rates of neurological recovery in the early postresuscitative period after 10-min cardiac arrest in albino male and female rats in the control group and in the study group receiving estradiol + dehy-droepiandrosterone. Materials and methods. Forty-eight animals of both sexes that had experienced under ether anesthesia a 10-min cardiac arrest due to intrathoracic ligation of its vascular fascicle were examined. After standard cardiopulmonary resuscitation, placebo was intramuscularly injected in 31 animals and 17 animals received estradiol and dehydroepiandrosterone in a dose of 0.1 mg and 5 mg per 100 g of ginodian depot (Shering, Germany) used for prolonged correction of the postcastration syndrome in women. Then the general and neurological statuses were evaluated in the animals. Enzyme immunoassay was used to determine the plasma concentration of 7 sex steroids in normalcy (18 intact animals), in the control animals in the untreated animals (n=31) on days 2 and 16 following resuscitation and in the hormone-treated (n=17) animals only on day 16. Results. The processes of dying and cardiovascular resuscitation did not differ significantly in the male and female groups. During the days which followed, there was a more rapid neurological recovery in female rats as compared with male rats in both the control group and the hormonal treatment group with the accelerated external recovery in the latter. There were significant gender differences in the plasma hormonal profile in normalcy and in the postresuscitative period in the controls, which were leveled after treatment. Conclusion. The gender differences in the results of postresuscitative recovery are associated with the specific features of the profile of endogenous reproductive steroids in the organism. Functional recovery following clinical death may be accelerated by exogenous sex steroids. Key words: gender differences, clinical death, reproductive steroids, neurological deficit.