Holding Your Breath and Brain Damage

[Julio R]

How long would it take for your brain to be permanently damaged after holding your breath? In other words, after how long of holding your breath will your brain function be at risk?

A quick Google search gave me varied results.

 

[Enigman]

How long would it take for your brain to be permanently damaged after holding your breath? In other words, after how long of holding your breath will your brain function be at risk?

A quick Google search gave me varied results.

You will most probably faint before causing any damage and start breathing again sub-consciously.
but still:

Prolonged apnea leads to severe lack of oxygen in the blood circulation. Permanent brain damage can occur after as little as three minutes and death will inevitably ensue after a few more minutes unless ventilation is restored. However, under special circumstances such as hypothermia, hyperbaric oxygenation, apneic oxygenation (see below), or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, much longer periods of apnea may be tolerated without severe consequences.
Untrained humans cannot sustain voluntary apnea for more than one or two minutes[citation needed]. The reason for the time limit of voluntary apnea is that the rate of breathing and the volume of each breath are tightly regulated to maintain constant values of CO2 tension and pH of the blood. In apnea, CO2 is not removed through the lungs and accumulates in the blood. The consequent rise in CO2 tension and drop in pH result in stimulation of the respiratory centre in the brain which eventually cannot be overcome voluntarily.

 

[paulmarin]

After 5 to 10 minutes of not breathing, you are likely to create serious and probably permanent brain damage.
The one exemption is when a young person stops breathing and also becomes abnormally cool at the same time. This can happen when a kid is instantly plunged into very cold water and drowns. In this scenario, survival after more than 30 minutes has been known to occur.

 

[Manish7]

The one exemption is when a young person stops breathing and also becomes abnormally cool at the same time. This can happen when a kid is instantly plunged into very cold water and drowns. In this scenario, survival after more than 30 minutes has been known to occur.

How can this occur ?

 

[Pythagorean]

Both act to slow down metabolism so less damage occurs. The state is called suspended animation. Last time I heard about it, they were using hydrogen sulfide which has a similar effect to not breathing (it blocks oxygen). The studies were in trials, but the trials got withdrawn in 2011.

 

[Julio R]

Both act to slow down metabolism so less damage occurs. The state is called suspended animation. Last time I heard about it, they were using hydrogen sulfide which has a similar effect to not breathing (it blocks oxygen). The studies were in trials, but the trials got withdrawn in 2011.

I think they used suspended animation to operate on baby mice during regenerating research. It put them in a" dead-like" state.