“Heat” in the minds of women: Up to 40 degrees the temperature in parts of the brain

Heat conditions prevail in some deep areas of the brain, as revealed for the first time by a new British scientific study. While the temperature in the body of healthy people is below 37 degrees Celsiusthe average brain temperature is 38.5 and in some of its deep areas often exceeds 40 degreesespecially to women during the day.

His researchers Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the Medical Research Council in Cambridgewho made the relevant publication in the journal Brain (Neuroscience), produced the first detailed “map” of the temperatures of the healthy human brain. The “map” shows that the normal temperature differences vary much more than previously thought and that this should be considered a sign of normal functioning and not abnormal.

In the past, the study of human brain temperature had only been performed in patients with brain damage in intensive care units. But more recently, one new method of “scanning” the brain (Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS)) allowed researchers to non-invasively record brain temperatures in healthy people and how they fluctuate over a 24-hour period.

The new study was done in 40 volunteers aged 20 to 40 years, whose brains were monitored in temperature on a continuous basis from morning to night. They were found that way noticeable fluctuations in brain temperature depending on the brain area, age of the person, gender and time of day. The study also dispels the widespread notion that a person’s body temperature and brain temperature are the same.

The surface of the brain is generally coolerwhile its deepest areas not infrequently exceed 40 degrees, with highest temperature recorded in a healthy person, be 40.9 degrees. In all people the average temperature of the brain during the day varies by almost one degree, with the highest temperature being observed in the afternoon and the lowest at night.

The female brain is on average 0.4 degrees warmer than the male. This difference probably due to the menstrual cycle (period) of the womanas in most post-ovulatory women the temperature of their brain is about 0.4 degrees higher than in the pre-ovulatory phase.

Cerebral temperature also increases with age in both sexes, especially in the deep brain regions, where the average temporal increase reaches 0.6 degrees. This is probably due to the fact that over time the brain’s ability to cool down decreases.

THE lead researcher Dr. John O’Neill “The most unexpected finding of our study is that a healthy human brain can reach temperatures that would be considered fever anywhere else in the body. Such high temperatures have previously been measured only in people with brain damage and have been considered a consequence of the damage. “We also found that the temperature of the brain drops at night before going to bed and rises during the day. This is a diurnal variation related to the long-term health of the brain and needs to be studied further.”

The researchers also studied brain temperature in 114 patients with moderate to severe brain injury and found that the mean temperature was the same as that of healthy people (38.5 degrees), but varied more (from 32.6 to 42.3). grades).