The role of hypoxia in mental development and in the treatment of mental disorders: A review

"The role of hypoxia in mental development and in the treatment of mental disorders: A review".  
Basovich S.N.
Bioscience Trends, 2010 Dec.; 4(6):288-296.

Abstract: The purpose of this review is to trace the trends in studying and applying hypoxia in the field of mental problems. A literature review was conducted using the PubMed database, with a time-frame extending to October 2010. According to the neurodevelopmental model of mental disorders, abnormalities in brain development during pre- and perinatal life lead to psychotic manifestation in adolescence or young adulthood. Studies show that hypoxia plays an important role in almost any risk factor related to brain development in early life: pre-eclampsia, infection/inflammation, hypoxia/ischemia, preterm birth, and asphyxia at birth. The cited data show trends in using hypoxia, especially in the form of intermittent hypoxic training, for the treatment and prevention of mental disorders, and trends in using it for increasing mental capacity in animals.

Keywords: hypoxia, mental disorders, treatment, prevention, mental capacity.


Full text is available at http://www.biosciencetrends.com/getabstract.php?id=368 or at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21248426


 FAQ

Q. If you were your country’s minister of health, how would you reduce mental morbidity?
A. I would encourage doctors to conduct IHT on all women as a preventive measure.
The initial IHT needs to be conducted a month before a prospective pregnancy. It improves women’s resistance to possible infections and inflammatory processes and reduces the probability of preeclampsia. It is useful to conduct IHT two or three times during the second half of a pregnancy as well, the last time being just before labour to improve the foetus’s resistance to possible asphyxia during labour. Moreover, it is useful to conduct IHT at postnatal period, especially if it have not been conducted before.
Such therapy improves an organism’s general resistance and is useful for the prevention of both mental and physical illnesses.
As was written in the article, IHT is a harmless method. In addition, it was discovered by Chizhov et al. that the biorhythm of oxygen tension in uterine of a pregnant woman and fetal tissues exists. It also corroborates the naturalness of the IHT.




Q. You wrote that “The first trials of this method in psychiatry were conducted in the United States (76-80), mostly with patients who were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The results were initially insignificant but encouraging, but eventually became negligible". The question is why has this research been stopped despite its encouraging first results?
A. First, the researchers of the first group were afraid that acute “anoxemia … would involve the vital centres of the medulla and is emphatically warned against it because it is not compatible with safety.” This was written in 1939. These concerns now have little basis due to modern techniques and great experience with ECT.
Second, the second group of researches obtained zero results on greater material, and the method was forgotten. The detailed analysis of the procedure and equipment used in these trials [69] showed that the reason for the unsuccessful results was a weak hypoxic influence, which was especially weak in the second group research.




Q. Is intermittent hypoxic training (IHT) safe? If so, what are the indications for it?
A. IHT is safe, as about 2 million patients have undergone it without any registered negative effects. It has the following indications, according to the Recommended Treatment Protocols of the Russian Ministry of Health:
1.1. Cardiovascular system diseases (ishemic heart disease, atherosclerosic and postinfarction cardiosclerosis, hypertension of stage I and IIa degree, neurocirculatory asthenia).
1.2. Blood diseases (hypoplastic and iron deficiency anaemia, postradiative disorders gaematopoesis).
1.3. Chronic nonspecific lung diseases (chronic pneumonia, chronic bronchitis, bronchial asthma) and allergic diseases.
1.4. Chronic diseases of gastrointestinal tract.
1.5. Diseases of the metabolism (hydrocarbonic, lipid, protein), primary thyrotoxicosis, diabetes mellitus;
1.6. Chronic inflammatory processes of the sexual sphere, including gynaecological diseases.
1.7. Preparing of the organism for pregnancy, toxicosis in pregnant women (pre-eclampsia), possible complications during labour.
1.8. Astenic and depressive state, neurosis, somatized psychopathologic syndromes.
1.9. Reduced organism`s resistance to unfavourable ecological conditions (climatic and meteorologic factors, distress, so on).
1.10. Reduced working capacity, rapid fatiguing, and insomnia.
1.11. Interrupted normobaric hypoxic stimulation secures the reducing of the side effects of pharmacological means, including side effects of some chemotherapy drugs in oncologic patients treatment, and the increasing of the resistance to the natural and chemical poisons.
1.12. Normobaric hypoxytherapy may aid in improving of nonspecific organism resistance in complex treatment of the patients with malignant neoplasms.
1.13. Normobaric hypoxic hypoxia developing upon breathing gas mixture consisting 10±1% of oxygen (GGM-10), and breathing gas mixture with lower oxygen concentration, for certain protects the oncologic patient organism from side effects of ionizing radiation during irradiation, so improving effectiveness of radiation therapy.




Q. Is it possible to create talented humans or even geniuses under the influence of hypoxic hypoxia?
A. Animal experiments demonstrated that mental capacity could be increased under the influence of moderate hypoxic hypoxia. The application of this method to humans, however, will only begin after greatly increased scientific research, including experiments on apes. We can now only state that the hypoxic influence in such cases must be weaker than in cases of asphyxia at birth.




Q. You have hypothesised that the brains of schizophrenia patients are in a state of deep hypoxia. How can this be tested?
A. By using an instrument called a cerebral oximeter.




Q. I have a bitch dog and would like her descendants to become more clever. Is this possible?
A. No well-tested procedures are currently available. The general estimate is that hypoxic influence in such cases must be weaker than in cases of asphyxia at birth; this can be somewhat approximated by putting a newborn puppy in a chamber with 4% to 8% oxygen for from 5 to 50 minutes.




Q. When may we expect well-tested procedures for increasing dogs’ mental capacity to become available?
A. It depends on research enthusiasm and funding. The development of the procedures themselves would be likely to take approximately three to seven years.




Q. Who is interested in developing dogs with increased mental capacity?
A. Private dog owners, armies, and the police.