hibernation-like states in humans?

[bad1080]

after reading this:

trauma triggers the cell danger response and that stops healing, causes more trauma and a further spiral into the dauer state

from: https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...-a-main-contributor-to-cfs.89406/post-2427269

i started looking into the "dauer state" and it looks to be a metabolic hibernation state (hypometabolic).

from here: https://chronicillnesstraumastudies.com/mecfs-freeze/
i found the paper "Metabolic features of chronic fatigue syndrome" and it mentions a lot of different but similar hibernation states:

Much research hasbeen done on the hypometabolic phenotype in other biologicsystems, including dauer (35), diapause (40), hibernation (41),estivation (42), torpor (43), ischemic preconditioning (44), ERstress (45), the unfolded protein response (46), autophagy (47, 48),and caloric restriction (49).

following the "(35)" i arrived at a paper about a nematode. the other ones i haven't checked yet but i was wondering what's known about such a state in humans? because bears hibernate and they are much closer to humans than a nematode.

then i found this:

Researchers identify hypothalamus neurons that control hibernation-like behaviors in mice

from: https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...rol-hibernation-like-behaviors-in-mice.80372/

and mice are closer to humans too (mammals) but now i wonder what's known about such a state in humans, how it is triggered and how it could possibly be resolved?

the main driver for my curiosity is how it could be an explanation for the variability in symptoms, how i can feel almost normal one day and severely ill the next.

 

[bad1080]

some symptoms with parallels to hibernation (from the top of my head):

• the ravenous hunger before PEM hits (a bear would eat considerable amounts before going into hibernation)
• the inability to produce heat while in PEM (for me it's not just "being cold" but it feels like my body has >shut down< the production of warmth). producing heat through cellular respiration is a major drain on resources (calories) so it gets reduced to a minimum during hibernation.
• the feeling after waking up from a nap (where it feels like i am crawling out of a deep swamp although i been asleep for only an hour) makes much more sense in the context of a hibernation-like state
• it could explain why some of us do better/worse during certain seasons

 

[bad1080]

Transient receptor potential melastatin 2 [TRPM2] channels are overexpressed in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome patients

from: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6891975/ [information in brackets and emphasis added by me]

We discovered that this UIH [Ultrasound-induced hypothermia and hypometabolism] was associated with ultrasonic activation of the TRPM2 ion channel expressed in torpor-associated POA neurons.

and:

We also demonstrate that UIH is feasible in a non-torpid animal, the rat.

from: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-023-00804-z [information in brackets and emphasis added by me]

torpor can be induced via ultrasound in mice and is associated with an ion channel overexpressed in PwME

 

[southwestforests]

Interesting. Will send that ME/CFS and freeze article to Julie here in a moment.

 

[Wayne]

the main driver for my curiosity is how it could be an explanation for the variability in symptoms, how i can feel almost normal one day and severely ill the next.

Hi @bad1080 -- I imagine there could be a lot of possibilities for that. I'm in the cohort that has a LOT of variability in my symptoms. I range from feeling pretty normal at times, to feeling extraordinarily debilitated and discombobulated at other times. Often in the same day.

I think a lot of things are responsible for that, one being that I feel my "electrical system" is fragile and can easily get out of whack. I had a dream many years ago in which I was in a house, and saw electricity arcing out of control all over the house. I eventually made my way to the electrical box to try to do something about it, and saw the same arcing going on. I knew it was dangerous, and somehow, in one fell swoop, I turned the electricity intensity down by about 90%. All the arcing slowed down, but no longer felt like it was a danger. (This might pertain to the gist of your thread).

I interpreted this dream as my body's electrical system misfiring in some manner. It led me to explore a lot of different energetic techniques to bring my electrical system back into balance. I found many things that work well, and do them on a daily basis (which I've posted pretty extensively about). But there's something in my body that keeps pulling me back into disharmony. So it's a constant battle for me, doing things everyday to counter my body's inclination to be out of balance.

And so it is. I've learned to live with it. Enjoying the better times, and continuing to learn how to overcome the daily challenges. Which by the way, becomes more and more difficult as time passes. Which is why I'm always looking for new ways that might be even more effective than what I'm currently all doing.

 

[Dysfunkion]

Hi @bad1080 -- I imagine there could be a lot of possibilities for that. I'm in the cohort that has a LOT of variability in my symptoms. I range from feeling pretty normal at times, to feeling extraordinarily debilitated and discombobulated at other times. Often in the same day.

I think a lot of things are responsible for that, one being that I feel my "electrical system" is fragile and can easily get out of whack. I had a dream many years ago in which I was in a house, and saw electricity arcing out of control all over the house. I eventually made my way to the electrical box to try to do something about it, and saw the same arcing going on. I knew it was dangerous, and somehow, in one fell swoop, I turned the electricity intensity down by about 90%. All the arcing slowed down, but no longer felt like it was a danger. (This might pertain to the gist of your thread).

I interpreted this dream as my body's electrical system misfiring in some manner. It led me to explore a lot of different energetic techniques to bring my electrical system back into balance. I found many things that work well, and do them on a daily basis (which I've posted pretty extensively about). But there's something in my body that keeps pulling me back into disharmony. So it's a constant battle for me, doing things everyday to counter my body's inclination to be out of balance.

And so it is. I've learned to live with it. Enjoying the better times, and continuing to learn how to overcome the daily challenges. Which by the way, becomes more and more difficult as time passes. Which is why I'm always looking for new ways that might be even more effective than what I'm currently all doing.

I've also had this feeling the entire time, how my body reacted to many things over the past couple years as I was digging myself out of the trenches of severe was just throwing everything at all the wall making a map of what I thought was going on based on what sparked what online or did something else to modulate another symptom.

The one thing that has been a major trend is that it's almost like I had to spark things back online piece by piece. Sometimes I was able to find something that was extremely stimulating in a specific way but it never lasted but when something sparked a basic function online that allowed "automatic control" again by the body without it blanking out before a process even begins is when I got back something. An example of that was when I first started the Lyme herbals after I was diagnosed but they wouldn't give me any antibiotics. First it was cistus and then it was osha root. Only after that did I really start getting fluctuations from anything else besides supplements that could cause a big reaction like upping my dose of methyl-b12 or trying any form of D3 at the time. It wasn't that my body was doing things to stop processes but it felt like my body wouldn't even start them at all. Everything was on manual or simply wouldn't work period. My brain had this "wires disconnected" feeling that was vague but powerful at the same time like it wasn't even connected to my body.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

some symptoms with parallels to hibernation (from the top of my head):

the things you've listed there are interesting....I think its possible perhaps we have some mRNA turning on genes that normally aren't operational.

I can identify with the ravenous hunger comment. This happens, periodically. A two pound slab of rare try-tip was handed to me, by a neighbor, it was still warm.

And last week I was a tad run down and its 85 degrees outside and my feet were like icebergs.

I had to take antibiotics last week. Not pleased, I take them very very rarely. They messed up insulin resistance, and gave me weird hypoglycemic attacks. In theory, I may have killed off a critter in my gut, that deals with blood sugar. Ravenous again.

 

[Wayne]

My brain had this "wires disconnected" feeling that was vague but powerful at the same time like it wasn't even connected to my body.

Hey @Dysfunkion -- I often have that feeling as well. When I mentioned in my earlier post "discombobulation", I often use that term to describe what I feel (to use your terminology) is a "wires disconnected" with far more than just my brain.

I tend to think in terms of my entire electrical system being under constant stress. I would vaguely define that as various meridian energy flows, chakra energy flows, aura energy flows, etc. that are disrupted. I also think in terms of alignment of my inner bodies.

Not sure if you ever peruse esoteric literature, or have any interest in it at all, but there's quite a bit of information out there on a people's five different bodies, with the physical body being one of the five. They're often listed in this manner or something similar:

• Physical body
• Astral body
• Causal body
• Mental body
• Etheric body

If these inner bodies are not in alignment and harmony with each other, health issues can arise in any or all of them. When feeling particularly discombobulated, I do visualizations to try the best I can to somehow align these inner bodies. Sometimes I'm successful and can feel much better after a 20-min. visualization, other times not so much.

 

[Dysfunkion]

[

Hey @Dysfunkion -- I often have that feeling as well. When I mentioned in my earlier post "discombobulation", I often use that term to describe what I feel (to use your terminology) is a "wires disconnected" with far more than just my brain.

I tend to think in terms of my entire electrical system being under constant stress. I would vaguely define that as various meridian energy flows, chakra energy flows, aura energy flows, etc. that are disrupted. I also think in terms of alignment of my inner bodies.

Not sure if you ever peruse esoteric literature, or have any interest in it at all, but there's quite a bit of information out there on a people's five different bodies, with the physical body being one of the five. They're often listed in this manner or something similar:

• Physical body
• Astral body
• Causal body
• Mental body
• Etheric body

If these inner bodies are not in alignment and harmony with each other, health issues can arise in any or all of them. When feeling particularly discombobulated, I do visualizations to try the best I can to somehow align these inner bodies. Sometimes I'm successful and can feel much better after a 20-min. visualization, other times not so much.

I have ways of controlling my perception enough and visualizing currents through my brain and body do help me do that. One thing I been working to as much longer range goal is knowing myself in possible states I am ever in, almost like some completely integrated knowledge of the self in a way that transcends just dealing with individual "here and now" states that allows me more freedom/stability I didn't have access to otherwise even in various states of disability. It's no solution to anything but when you get good at this you could pull through some difficult situations you thought you would actually lose your mind in but make it. I use these sorts of techniques a lot at work to push through and do my job the best I can even if my nervous system is experiencing WW3 and usually when it is I'm in the middle of experimenting with something new where I can't just stay home to keep myself sheltered as I figure myself out. I take a more hard headed approach to making advances with my health while going through daily life among people I can't really talk about the general bubble of topics on this forum with or relate to because of these health and nervous system issues. Luckily this week through this hops madness I have had off and can do that. Then after that I only need to get through about a month and a half of work before I'm free for the Summer. Over work culture just doesn't breed healthy people in general and we get even sicker than the "healthy people" also doing their thing there. I seriously owe much of the way I just tank things to knowing how my nervous system functions (or doesn't for that matter) in so many contexts that I just know what to do where to simply survive something till I get home. Sometimes that's all you can do.

 

[bad1080]

Abstract
Torpor during hibernation defines the nadir of mammalian metabolism where whole animal rates of metabolism are decreased to as low as 2% of basal metabolic rate. This capacity to decrease profoundly the metabolic demand of organs and tissues has the potential to translate into novel therapies for the treatment of ischemia associated with stroke, cardiac arrest or trauma where delivery of oxygen and nutrients fails to meet demand. If metabolic demand could be arrested in a regulated way, cell and tissue injury could be attenuated. Metabolic suppression achieved during hibernation is regulated, in part, by the central nervous system through indirect and possibly direct means. In this study, we review recent evidence for mechanisms of central nervous system control of torpor in hibernating rodents including evidence of a permissive, hibernation protein complex, a role for A1 adenosine receptors, mu opiate receptors, glutamate and thyrotropin-releasing hormone. Central sites for regulation of torpor include the hippocampus, hypothalamus and nuclei of the autonomic nervous system. In addition, we discuss evidence that hibernation phenotypes can be translated to non-hibernating species by H2S and 3-iodothyronamine with the caveat that the hypothermia, bradycardia, and metabolic suppression induced by these compounds may or may not be identical to mechanisms employed in true hibernation.

from: "Central nervous system regulation of mammalian hibernation: implications for metabolic suppression and ischemia tolerance" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3600610/

the mu opiate receptors are something LDN (low dose naltrexone) acts upon.

 

[bad1080]

Interesting. Will send that ME/CFS and freeze article to Julie here in a moment.

let me add this article mentions the polyvagal theory a lot and from wikipedia:

PVT is popular among some clinical practitioners and patients,[3] but it is not endorsed by current social neuroscience.[4][5][6][7][8][9]

but maybe even more telling:

In a 2021 publication, Porges stated that "the theory was not proposed to be either 'proven' or 'falsified', rather to be informed by research and modified".[36] Falsifiability is a central tenet of the scientific method.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory

 

[southwestforests]

let me add this article mentions the polyvagal theory a lot

Okay. That didn't stick in my head.
Anyway, I have faith Julie will look wisely at the article, she is a retired pediatric nurse, has done a couple research papers herself.