Rats spent hours in a state of chilly suspended animation after researchers injected a compound into the animals in a cold room. The animals’ heart rates slowed, brain activity became sluggish and body temperature plummeted.
The research joins a small number of studies that attempt to induce the metabolically lethargic state known as torpor in animals that can’t normally slow their metabolism. “It’s a breakthrough” in understanding aspects of torpor, says neuroscientist Kelly Drew of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.