Is "brain fever" normal?Unexpectedly, the healthy "brain temperature" can reach 40 ° C daily!

When people are excited, they do some unreasonable behaviors and are often said to be "brain fever". However, scientists have recently discovered by measuring "brain temperature" that healthy and normal human brains are actually hotter than we used to think. Compared with normal body temperature, the brain is often in a "fever" state.

Picture source: 123RF

Compared to measuring body temperature, it is obviously much more difficult to measure "brain temperature". After all, we are generally unlikely to insert the thermometer into the brain -there are exceptions, and occasionally there are cases of severe injuries on the head. Due to the need for treatment, doctors will meet the needs of the treatment. Put a high -sensitivity probe into the patient's brain directly monitor the temperature. However, the brain temperature measured in this case does not represent the brain of a healthy person.

Now, with the help of magnetic resonance scanners (MRI), researchers at Cambridge MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory in Britain use a technology called Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. And through continuous measurement, the scope of changes in human brain temperature is determined.

▲ Research results have been published recently on professional academic journals brain

This study found that the normal temperature of the human brain was between 36.1 ° C and 40.9 ° C, and the average brain temperature was 38.5 ° C. Compared with the body temperature (average 36 ° C) read through the oral cavity, the brain temperature is 2.5 ° C, which clearly shows the truth of "brain burning".

As for why the temperature of the brain is so high, researchers believe that it is not difficult to understand. After all, we know that the brain is a organs with a high metabolic activity.

The temperature of the brain is not only higher than the people in the past, but also has been changing, and the change rate is beyond the expectations of researchers. These changes are related to gender, age, brain area, biological clock (different time periods in one day) and women's menstrual cycle.

▲ This study built a 4D picture showing a healthy adult (picture source: reference material [1])

Researchers compared the differences between the brain temperature of 20 men and 20 women, and found that the average of the female brain was a little hotter, about 0.4 ° C about the male brain. This gender difference is likely to be related to the menstrual cycle, because most women are in the second half of the menstrual cycle, that is, the luteal period after ovulation, the brain temperature is nearly 0.4 ° C higher than the first half.

The temperature of the brain also fluctuates at different times of the day. The researchers measured in the morning, afternoon, and evening, and found that the change in the brain temperature within a day was nearly 1 ° C: cooling down at night, the daytime rising, and the highest temperature observed in the afternoon. The researchers explained that this may be because when we sleep, more blood flows to the brain to help it cool down. This may also remind us of the importance of our sleep again: avoiding the long -term heat of the CPU.

The results also showed that among these 20 to 40s participants, the older the age, the hotter brain, and increased by 0.6 ° C in 20 years. Among them, the most significant temperature change is the hill brain in the depths of the brain. This part is also a relatively high temperature area in the entire brain.

Researchers have proposed that the cooling ability of the brain may weaken with age, which is worth further examining whether this change is related to the more prone to the elderly.

▲ Researchers selected 80 areas in the brain for measurement, including Hypo and Thal (picture source: reference materials [1]) in the depths of the brain

These new discoveries about brain temperature may bring changes to the way of treating and nursing brain injury.

In this paper, researchers also analyzed more than 100 patients with moderate to severe trauma brain injury (TBI) at the same time, comparing their brain temperature data. The average temperature of these patients' brain is similar to that of healthy people, but the temperature range is larger. "Doctors sometimes try to reduce the temperature for patients with brain injury because they are worried about high temperature harmful, and this method may need to be modified." Said Dr. Nina Rzechorzek, the person in charge of this study.

A more significant difference is manifested in the daily rhythm changes of the brain temperature -only 1/4 patients have daily rhythm changes. This kind of rhythm change is also closely related to the survival rate of patients: 27%of patients with traumatic brain injury with lack of rhythmic changes in the brain temperature will die during the intensive care period. In contrast The mortality rate during the monitoring period is 4%.

"These data show that the brain temperature measurement of all -weather has great clinical value." Dr. RZECHORZEK added, "Our work also opened a door for future research, such as in several age -related brains such as dementia. In the disease, the interruption of the daily rhythm of the brain temperature can be used as an early biomarker. "

Reference materials:

[1] Nina M. RZECHZEK et al., (2022) A daily tempicur rhythm in the human brain predictly after brain injging.

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