Abstract： Objective To explore whether the peritoneal cooling was better than other cooling methods on protection neuron damage of the hippocampus CA1 after cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in New Zealand rabbits.Methods Forty eight adult New Zealand rabbits were induced ventricular fibrillation by AC current and were resuscitated after cardiac arrest for 5 minutes.The rabbits were randomly divided into four groups according to the way of cooling methods,nomothermia group ( NT),peritoneal cooling group (PC),surface cooling group (SC) and local cooling group (LC).The changes of tympanic membrane temperature were recorded in each animal and blood plasma concentrations of electrolyte were tested in each group at different time points after restore of spontaneous circulation (ROSC).Brain tissue were removed,the numbers of vigorous and apoptotic neurons in the hippocampus CA1 area were counted after ROSC at 72h.One-way ANOVA or Mann-Whitney rank was used to determine the statistical significance between two groups.LSD-t test for multiple comparisons,R × C test for ROSC comparisons,a two-tailed value of P ＜0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results Hypothermia was rapidly induced in PC after ROSC,and the time of arriving at target temperature was (26 ±7) min in PC,(60 ±9) min in SC,(69 ± 12) min in LC respectively; in the maintain hypothermia period,the tympanic membrane temperature was maintained at 33～ 35 ℃ in each group exception nomothermia group (NT).There were no differences with main electrolyte,acid-abase liquid balance and renal function between each group at each time point after ROSC.The numbers of vigorous neurons in hippocampus CA1 area were ( 37.07 ± 6.43 ) /40 × in NT group,(35.13 ± 6.97) /40 × in LC group,(55.76 ± 10.13 ) /40 × in PC group,and (50.70 ± 7.38 ) /40 × in SC group (PC:NT,P＜0.01,SC:NT,P＜0.01,PC:SC,P=0.043,PC:LC,P＜0.01,LC:NT,P=0.52).The numbers of apoptotic neurons were (44.07 ±6.09) /40 × in NT group,(29.88 ±4.81 ) /40× in PC group,( 33.55 ± 5.67 ) /40 × in SC group and ( 42.27 ± 5.20 ) /40 × in LC group respectively (PC:NT,P ＜0.01,SC:NT,P ＜0.01,PC:LC,P ＜0.01,SC:LC,P ＜0.01,PC:SC,P=0.026,LC:NT,P =0.364 ).Conclusions The new peritoneal cooling method could rapidly induce and maintain hypothermia,and it had better protections on neurons in hippocampus CA1 than surface cooling and local cooling method after ROSC in New Zealand rabbits.