Brain temperature regulation in poor-grade subarachnoid hemorrhage patients – A multimodal neuromonitoring study

Elevated body temperature (T(core)) is associated with poor outcome after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Brain temperature (T(brain)) is usually higher than T(core). However, the implication of this difference (T(delta)) remains unclear. We aimed to study factors associated with higher T(delta) and its association with outcome. We included 46 SAH patients undergoing multimodal neuromonitoring, for a total of 7879 h of averaged data of T(core), T(brain), cerebral blood flow, cerebral perfusion pressure, intracranial pressure and cerebral metabolism (CMD). Three-months good functional outcome was defined as modified Rankin Scale ≤2. T(brain) was tightly correlated with T(core) (r = 0.948, p < 0.01), and was higher in 73.7% of neuromonitoring time (T(delta) +0.18°C, IQR −0.01 – 0.37°C). A higher T(delta) was associated with better metabolic state, indicated by lower CMD-glutamate (p = 0.003) and CMD-lactate (p < 0.001), and lower risk of mitochondrial dysfunction (MD) (OR = 0.2, p < 0.001). During MD, T(delta) was significantly lower (0°C, IQR −0.2 – 0.1; p < 0.001). A higher T(delta) was associated with improved outcome (OR = 7.7, p = 0.002). Our study suggests that T(brain) is associated with brain metabolic activity and exceeds T(core) when mitochondrial function is preserved. Further studies are needed to understand how T(delta) may serve as a surrogate marker for brain function and predict clinical course and outcome after SAH.