selective pharyngeal brain cooling wholebody cooling can be used in the treatment of various brain pathologies for example after hypoxic events potential complications include haemodynamic instability coagulation disorders and infection selective brain cooling sbc would therefore appear to make good sense in an animal model a new approach to sbc was therefore evaluated a rat weighing 350 g was sedated with alphachloralose 40 mgkgh and dtubocurarine 405 mgkgh mechanically ventilated and placed on a heating pad a thermocouple was introduced into the somatosensory cortex to a depth of 25 mm sbc was achieved using a novel approach ptfe tubing id 100 microns with an inlet and an outlet was wrapped around and glued to a piece of wood and introduced non traumatically into the pharynx the tubing was perfused with cold water 4 degrees c under sbc the cortical temperature dropped from 384 degrees c to 277 degrees c while the core temperature remained stable in an animal model sbc was successfully accomplished via the pharynx further studies should now be done to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach in larger animals with potentially different anatomical features