Overman W H, Brauer R W, Burke E R
University of North Carolina, Wilmington 28403-3297.
Undersea Biomed Res. 1989 Mar;16(2):115-27.
Squirrel monkeys (n = 8) were equated on learning and memory tasks before sustaining 3 separate dives in a laboratory compression chamber. Associative memory was carefully monitored 1 wk before and 3 wk immediately after each dive. The first dive was a shallow, subseizure control dive and the subsequent 2 dives were deep, seizure-inducing dives. Half of the animals were always compressed in He-O2 and half in He-N2-O2 gas, which is known to increase the depth at which tremors and seizures occur. After the control dive there was a slight (10% average) decline in memory performance, but the decline was temporary and recovery was complete by the second postdive week. There was no evidence of residual memory impairments after either of the 2 subsequent seizure-inducing dives. Although addition of nitrogen to the breathing gas significantly elevated thresholds for tremors, it had no differential effect on memory scores. These results are in agreement with studies of human divers that show either no residual impairments or transient, fully recoverable cognitive symptoms after diving.
松鼠猴（n = 8）在实验室压力舱中进行3次单独潜水之前，先在学习和记忆任务上进行了匹配。在每次潜水前1周和潜水后立即3周，对联想记忆进行了仔细监测。第一次潜水是浅度的、低于癫痫发作阈值的对照潜水，随后的2次潜水是深度的、诱发癫痫发作的潜水。一半的动物始终在氦氧混合气中加压，另一半在氦氮氧混合气中加压，已知后者会增加震颤和癫痫发作出现的深度。对照潜水后，记忆表现有轻微（平均10%）下降，但下降是暂时的，在潜水后第二周完全恢复。在随后的2次诱发癫痫发作的潜水中，均没有残余记忆损伤的证据。尽管向呼吸气体中添加氮气显著提高了震颤阈值，但对记忆分数没有差异影响。这些结果与人类潜水员的研究结果一致，即潜水后要么没有残余损伤，要么出现短暂的、可完全恢复的认知症状。
