Aquarium fish and temperature neuropharmacology: Update

Abstract

At the end of the 20th century in Russia, research on temperature dependence of specific pharmacological activity of antihypoxants and some neurotropic drugs under normo- and hypothermia of various biological objects in experimental and clinical conditions was started. At the beginning of the 21st century, an original biological model of acute hypoxia in aquarium fish was developed. This model made it possible to start the study of fish resistance to hypoxia, screen biologically active substances, and evaluate the activity of antihypoxants under normo- and hypothermia. The initial results of using this model allowed us to conclude that the dynamics of motor activity of fish under acute hypoxic conditions are similar to that of motor activity of fetuses inside the uterus under diagnostic intrauterine hypoxia created by voluntary apnea in a pregnant woman. The period of immobility of fish and fetuses under hypoxia was directly proportional to the value of their resistance to hypoxia. The reduction in conditions of acute hypoxic water temperature with floating fish in it at 10°C lengthens the duration of the immobile state of fish and preservation of their viability more than two times, and the preliminary introduction of hydrogen peroxide in the water in therapeutic dose along with hypothermia lengthens the corresponding periods by four times. Neurotropic drugs such as ethyl alcohol and local and general anesthetics will completely eliminate the pain syndrome that develops during local hypothermia in healthy patients. In addition, immersing the hands of people under alcohol intoxication and/or surgical anesthesia in water with melting ice for 2 min alleviates pain in the hands and accelerates the development of subsequent hyperemia in the skin of the hands by two times compared with the norm.