Figure 3.

Blood chemistry data at baseline (B), in the last minute of 20 min asphyxia (ASPH), and the subsequent observation period. Arterial blood gas analysis revealed that asphyxia resulted in severe acidosis (A), hypercapnia (B), hypoxemia (C). Plasma glucose (D) and lactate levels (E) were markedly elevated along with large drops in base excess (F), indicating the metabolic response to asphyxia. After asphyxia, arterial pH and pCO₂ values reflected the effect of 10–5% CO₂ ventilation in the graded reduction of normocapnia group (A-HT + CO₂); otherwise, reventilation restored most of the parameters by 4 h, and they were not significantly different from baseline levels afterwards. Experimental groups: control-normothermia (C-NT), asphyxia-normothermia (A-NT), asphyxia-hypothermia (A-HT), A-HT supplemented with H₂ (A-HT + H₂) or CO₂ (A-HT + CO₂), respectively. Bars and whiskers represent mean ± SEM, p < 0.05 * vs. all groups; ^‡ vs. C-NT; ^† vs. A-NT; ^# vs. A-HT.