Mild hypothermia may be an effective treatment for acute stroke, but it usually triggers shivering, which could be harmful. Our results indicate that the combination of small-dose buspirone and small-dose meperidine acts synergistically to reduce the shivering threshold while causing little sedation or respiratory toxicity. This combination may facilitate the induction of therapeutic hypothermia in stroke victims.

Reproducible ARM dynamics in individual subjects compares favorably with clinical and electroencephalogram sedation end points and suggests that the ARM could be used as an independent instrumental guide of drug effect during propofol-only sedation.