Project Overview

During a cardiac arrest, when the heart stops beating, blood flow and the delivery of the oxygen to the brain stops. This lack of blood flow and oxygen leads to a severe brain injury called a hypoxic-ischemic brain injury. Even if the heart starts beating again following cardiopulmonary resuscitation, patients that suffer a cardiac arrest may not survive due to the severity of the brain injury they sustained when their heart wasn’t beating. Patients whose hearts start beating again are admitted to the intensive care unit, where they may continue to experience low oxygen levels in their brain. Continuously low oxygen levels in the brain can increase the severity of brain injury and reduce a patient’s chance of surviving or surviving without long-term deficits. Therefore, the healthcare team attempts to treat their brain injury, but this is based on general supportive care as there are currently no effective treatments for a hypoxic-ischemic brain injury in patients that have suffered a cardiac arrest.

As low oxygen levels in the brain contribute to the severity of a hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, this research focuses on improving our understanding of the mechanisms that lead to continual low oxygen levels in the brain following a cardiac arrest. We will use state-of-the-art brain monitoring techniques to directly measure the amount of oxygen in brain tissue and will also analyze 1,000’s of proteins in patients’ blood, cerebrospinal fluid, and brain tissue using a technique called proteomics. By pairing measures of oxygen levels in the brain with the analysis of 1,000’s of proteins, we hope to discover key mechanisms of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury. By understanding these mechanisms, we can then begin to work on developing therapies to target them and improve outcomes for patients that suffer a cardiac arrest and hypoxic-ischemic brain injury.

Principal Investigator

Ryan Hoiland , The University of British Columbia