Crazy: Our brains can reach a temperature of 40 degrees and above - Walla! health

2022-06-16T10:45:34.861Z

40 degrees Celsius is considered a very high heat that will send most of us to bed exhausted and poor. A new study has found that our brain exists in certain parts at a higher temperature than the rest of the body

Crazy: Our brains can reach a temperature of 40 degrees and above

40 degrees Celsius is considered a very high heat that will send most of us to bed exhausted and poor.

But new research has found that our brains exist in certain parts at this high temperature.

How does that happen?

Walla!

health

16/06/2022

Thursday, 16 June 2022, 11:31 Updated: 13:32

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Five things you may not have known about the brain ("Do not miss" system)

On hot or cold days - the human body is usually around 37 degrees Celsius.

But according to a new study the same cannot be said about the brain.

In the study, researchers found that human and healthy minds are warmer than previously thought, and can be 2 degrees warmer than the rest of the body.

Study participants, published in the journal Brain, had a mean brain temperature of 38.5 degrees Celsius, a fever 2.5 degrees Celsius higher than the average mouth temperature.

In deeper brain regions, the temperature was found to exceed 40 degrees Celsius with 40.9 degrees being the highest temperature recorded.

Brain temperature is not constant, the study found - it varies more than scientists once thought and is affected by age, sex, menstruation, brain area and time of day.

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To the full article

"For me, the most surprising finding from our study is that the healthy human brain can reach temperatures that are diagnosed as fever anywhere else in the body. Such high temperatures have been measured in the past in people with brain injuries, but it was assumed to be due to the injury," said Dr. John O'Neill. Head of a group in the laboratory of the Medical Research Institute for Molecular Biology, in a statement.

Is it considered heat?

Depends on where in the body.

Thermometer (Photo: ShutterStock)

The "normal" temperature of the brain was never actually defined in humans and was assumed to be the same as the rest of the body.

Previous studies have used data from brain-damaged patients, whose brains are directly monitored.

Now, brain temperature in healthy people can be measured using a spectroscopic magnetic resonance imaging (MRS) test - a non-invasive brain scanning technique.

Using MRS, the team behind the new study examined the brains of 40 healthy people - 20 men and 20 women - aged 20 to 40. The measurements were taken three times during the day, making it the first time MRS has been used to track brain temperature changes. thru out the day.

The findings showed that brain temperatures ranged from 36.1 to 40.9 degrees Celsius.

The brain surface tended to be cooler, while deeper areas were found to be warmer.

The thalamus, for example, which is one of the deepest parts of the brain, is where the highest temperature is recorded.

It has also been found that a person's gender affects his or her brain temperature.

Female brains were 0.36 degrees warmer during the second half of the menstrual cycle, after ovulation, than in the first half or compared to male brains.

In all participants, it was found that the brain temperature changes up to one degree during the day.

The brain was the hottest in the afternoon and the coolest at night.

"We found that brain temperature drops at night before you go to bed and rises during the day. There is good reason to believe that this daily variation is related to long-term brain health - something we hope to explore later," O'Neill added.

The temperature changes during the day.

Gif of the brain (Photo: Giphy)

"The human brain temperature is higher and more variable than previously thought," the study concludes, "which has major implications for temperature monitoring and management, with the daily brain temperature rate emerging as one of the strongest predictors of survival after brain injury."

While the authors note that their conclusions should be validated in larger studies, they remain optimistic that they may have clinical value in treating traumatic brain injury.

"Our work also opens the door to future research into whether a disorder of daily brain temperature rhythms could serve as an early biological marker for a number of chronic brain disorders, including dementia," the researchers said.