Communicating With the Motor Cortex? Cortisol and Yawning As Possible Biomarkers for the Detection of Neurological Disease

Simon Bn Thompson

doi:10.21767/2171-6625.1000131

Abstract

Cortisol and yawning have been proposed as new potential biomarkers for the early detection of signs of neurological disease. Recent evidence from neuroscience has shown that there is communication between the motor cortex and more remote but vital centres such as the brain-stem and hypothalamus. Hormonal as well as neuronal links form the prosed network that influences and monitors the regulation of cortisol and the regulation of brain temperature governed by the hypothalamus. This evidence tends to support the prosed linkage between brain-stem, hypothalamus and motor cortex and lends support for the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis which proposes threshold levels of cortisol elicit yawning for brain cooling, and parakinesia brachialis oscitans, the observed arm movement seen in brain-stem ischaemic stroke patients during involuntary yawning.

Highlights

Cortisol is a naturally occurring hormone normally associated with immune protection and the regulation of stress [1,2,3,4,5]
Monitoring the levels of cortisol is often helpful in cases where high levels of stress is present such as adrenal insufficiency, or Cushing’s disease and in multiple sclerosis [3], where cortisol levels are thought to fluctuate with continued fatigue
Yawning and cortisol has been associated with fatigue [6,7,8] and the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis was proposed to account for how yawning is triggered by threshold levels of cortisol in order to promote brain cooling [8,9,10]

Summary

Introduction

Cortisol is a naturally occurring hormone normally associated with immune protection and the regulation of stress [1,2,3,4,5]. Monitoring the levels of cortisol is often helpful in cases where high levels of stress is present such as adrenal insufficiency, or Cushing’s disease and in multiple sclerosis [3], where cortisol levels are thought to fluctuate with continued fatigue. Yawning and cortisol has been associated with fatigue [6,7,8] and the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis was proposed to account for how yawning is triggered by threshold levels of cortisol in order to promote brain cooling [8,9,10].

Results

Conclusion