Scientists have revealed the secret of gophers that can live without water for more than 6 months and do not feel thirsty

For six to eight months of each year, gophers do not leave their small underground dens. Scientists have found out how they wait out the cold weather in hibernation without needing any food or water supplies.

According to the study, during this period, those parts of the brain involved in causing thirst are strongly suppressed in gophers. This happens even during intermediate periods when the rodents are active. Combined with previous findings by the same lab team, the new study provides clarity on the extreme strategy of mammals to stay underground for so long, Pop Sci writes.

Water is needed for circulation, cell function, waste removal, body temperature regulation, and more. But for a brown-furred squirrel trying to survive the winter, the urge to leave its den and seek water can be a death sentence - hungry predators prowling the surface pose the greatest risk.

Thus, eliminating thirst becomes a counterintuitive way to stay alive, even if the squirrels are in desperate need of a drink.

Previous studies by senior author and professor of cellular and molecular physiology and neuroscience at Yale University Elena Gracheva and her colleagues have found that hibernating gophers keep the concentration of ions such as salt in their blood at a constant level. Hormones such as oxytocin and vasopressin promote water storage and act as antidiuretics, preventing urination. The area of the brain responsible for producing these hormones remains highly active during hibernation, despite the squirrel's low body temperature.

However, this physiological mechanism is not enough to fully explain the lack of thirst. Other thirst-inducing signals, such as hormones associated with kidney stress and low blood volume, are still circulating in mammalian bodies that, by all standard measures, should be thirsty. However, according to a new study, even when rodents are active during hibernation and offered water, they avoid it.

Hibernation is not a normal sleep, it's something completely different. For weeks at a time, hibernating gophers significantly reduce their metabolism and almost freeze. Their body temperature drops sharply from 2 to 4 degrees Celsius, and they are in a kind of physiological state called torpor.

During the months of hibernation, these 2-3 week periods of torpor alternate with one to two day bouts of excitement. When the squirrels become active, their body temperature rises to normal. But still they do not come out of the burrow, do not eat and do not drink.

To determine why the gophers do not feel thirsty or seek water during these bouts of excitement, the scientists conducted a series of behavioral and molecular experiments. They offered hibernating mammals water or saline during periods of awakening in the middle of hibernation. And they found that the animals were interested in a concentrated salt solution, but not water. This indicated that they were sensing some internal signals of their deprived state and potentially craving salt as a way to increase blood volume without lowering ion levels.

Scientists compare this experience to athletes.

"If you're severely dehydrated, you shouldn't drink plain water because it can dilute critical ions in your body below safe levels. Hibernating mammals also did not seem to be thirsty for water," says Madeleine Junkins, lead author of the study and a neuroscience researcher at Yale University.

But scientists say there are still more questions than answers. Gophers are poorly understood, model organisms. Researchers have not yet been able to conduct tests such as activating or inhibiting individual neurons to see how this might change behavior. "We are working on it, and I think in two or three years we will be able to use such tools," the scientist said.

In addition, hibernation is poorly understood at the molecular and cellular levels. There have been many behavioral studies, but little work on the detailed study of the internal functions of hibernating mammals, especially their water requirements.

"I believe we are the first to look at thirst during hibernation from a physiological perspective," Gracheva commented.

The study of hibernation does have broad application potential, if scientists can figure out how to apply the gophers' experience to humans. This could improve transplantation or open-heart surgery, which rely on temporary induced hypothermia in patients. Typically, such procedures are limited in time and capacity, as people can only safely be hypothermic for short bouts.

"If we can increase this window from two to five hours, it can help save many lives," the scientist explained.

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