Hello! I have been a doctor for 21 years. My name is Georgy Olegovich Sapego. In this article I will tell you about our internal thermostat.
We have already discussed body temperature and thermostat in the head. Sometimes this thermostat changes its settings, and it tries to keep the temperature a couple of degrees higher than usual. That is, instead of 37 degrees, it looks like 39. The thermostat is located in the hypothalamus. This is part of the brain.
Vessels
There are many different chemicals and hormones in the hypothalamus, but a thing called prostaglandin E2 triggers the temperature.
The hypothalamus from this prostaglandin goes into a panic, knocks on all doors and wakes up its neighbors in the brain. One of the neighbors is the vasomotor center. It is locomotor because the blood vessels also have muscles and they can move. This does not mean that the vessels creep away and hide. No. The muscles in the vessels can only constrict the vessels.
Blood flows worse through narrowed vessels. Hands and feet become cold because the blood does not give them warmth. It seems to a person that he is freezing. In fact, the hot blood that should have cooled in the skin quickly returns to the internal organs. From this, everything inside us heats up. Thus, you can raise your body temperature by a couple of degrees.
Fat burns
Body temperature can rise not only from peripheral vascular spasm. The hypothalamus begins to push the brown fat, and it burns with the release of heat. This will already be a natural oven.
There is a lot of brown fat in newborns, but with age, it gradually disappears. It is difficult to say how much an adult has.
Disconnectors
In our body, and in adipose tissue, and in muscles, the process of energy accumulation is constantly going on. Remember ATP? This is such an energetic substrate. As a battery for our body or a pure energy reserve.
When we eat something tasty, it does not just go into the furnace, but is immediately oxidized in a clever way to form this ATP. So the process of obtaining ATP can be spoiled. This happens constantly when the temperature rises.
Uncouplers appear. They disconnect the process of controlled burning of glucose in oxygen and the immediate storage of this energy. We still eat tasty things, but it does not turn into a battery, but flies into the furnace and burns there in oxygen. A lot of heat is generated this way.
Chills
And that is not all. Chills begin. Muscles shake finely and also generate heat. It would seem that it is more logical not to shake with a small shiver, but to run or climb somewhere, but there are other mechanisms.
Behavior
The primeval instincts are activated. A person wants to climb onto the stove, wrap himself up in a blanket, curl up into a ball and not move. This is necessary so that accidental drafts do not blow over the skin in any way. Sound familiar?
It turns out that joint efforts vasospasm, metabolism in the liver, adipose tissue and muscles, dissociation during the synthesis of ATP, tremors and strange behavior produce and conserve heat. The warmed blood flows to the brain, warms our internal thermostat, and the temperature stabilizes at a higher level.
If the thermostat gets hot, then it causes the vessels to expand and sweat to be released. Behavior changes. A person takes off his blanket, falls apart on the bed, blushes, sweats, a draft blows around him, and the temperature decreases.
Crash
This mechanism is malfunctioning. It happens that a person gets a good kick on the head and "shook off a light bulb." Or the thermostat has suffered from infection, brain hemorrhage, tumor, or something.
Do not be afraid. At the same time, the person will not heat up uncontrollably and will not explode. Usually a failure in thermoregulation leads, on the contrary, to cooling. Such people cannot maintain their body temperature. Any draft freezes them half to death.
Hyperthermia
This is overheating. The internal thermostat works in its usual rhythm, but it cannot always cope with the excess heat. For example, when a person puts on a down jacket and begins to work physically in it.
Or a person is given drugs that act as the very uncouplers. Such a patient turns into an autonomous stove. Antipyretic pills cannot cure him. This is a really scary situation, and you can be boiled alive.
There's a lot more to it. If interested, I'll tell you about the mechanisms by which the infection raises the temperature. Write your wishes and suggestions in the comments.
