Body Temperature Regulation

Body temperature regulation refers to processes of heating and cooling that an organism uses to control its temperature. Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. This process is one aspect of homeostasis, a dynamic state of stability between an animal's internal environment and its external environment. The maintenance of body temperature in animals is a result of the process of metabolism, by which foodstuffs are converted into protein, carbohydrates, and fat, with the release of energy in the form of heat. Because active muscles metabolize food faster than muscles at rest, giving off more heat in the process, physical activity increases body temperature. This book provides a great variety of research on human as well as animal body temperature regulation. The principles of thermodynamics pertinent to the exchange of heat energy between the body and its surrounding environment is reviewed. Included also are studies on the effects of diet, body weight, exercise, disease, age and drugs.

Table of Contents:
Preface; Fundamental Principles Governing Behavioural Thermoregulation; Reviewing the Functional Architecture of the Human Thermoregulatory System; Controlling Body Temperature -- the Opportunities for Highly Productive Domestic Fowl; Neonatal Thermoregulation; The Use of Infrared Thermography for the Investigation of Thermoregulation in Humans; Clinical Thermometry; Body Temperature Rise Caused by Diagnostic Imaging: Literature Review for Safer Use; Energy Utilization in the Homeotherm Animal: The Effects of Environmental Temperature and Metabolic Behaviour Characteristics; To Warm Up or to Pre-Cool? The Paradox of Optimal Strategies to Undertake Prior to Exercise in the Heat; The Effects of Absolute Exercise Intensity on Core Temperature Responses of Athletes with a Spinal Cord Injury; Thermoregulation During Upper Body Exercise; The Brain Dopaminergic System and Hyperthermia: The Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome and Parkinsonism-Hyperpyrexia Syndrome; Body Temperature and Eating Behaviour; Dietary-Induced Thermogenesis and Perioperative Thermoregulation; Thermoregulation in a Hornet Nest, Vespa Orientalis (Hymenoptera: Vespinae): The Interaction between Workers and the Pupal Brood; Characteristics, Mediators and Modulators of the Fever Response in Birds; Decreased Thermoregulation with Age in Mice Exhibits Significant Genetic Variation Early in the Aging Process; Role of the Nitric Oxide Pathway in Body Temperature Regulatory Mechanisms in the Central Nervous System; Thermogenic Effects of Orexin A Are Modified by Neuroleptic Drugs; Thermoregulation: Role of Cerebral Cortex; Aspects of the Case Evidence of Antipsychotics -- Associated Hypothermias; Index.