Effects of CNS temperature on generation and transmission of temperature signals in homeotherms. A common concept for mammalian and avian thermoregulation.

Abstract

Neurophysiological studies on avian hypothalamic thermosensitivity have presented evidence for a higher Q10 of cold than of warm signal transmission in the CNS of birds. An identical temperature dependence of central cold and warm signal transmission in mammals is suggested by considerations on the phylogeny of temperature regulation. By taking into account the experimental evidence for the existence of thermosensory afferents in the CNS of mammals and birds, being differently developed in the various sections of the neural axis and exerting quantitatively different influences on the various thermoregulatory effectors, a common concept of homeothermic thermoregulation is proposed resting on the same basic assumptions for mammals and birds. The great diversity of negative as well as positive feedback effects of CNS temperature displacements on homeothermic thermoregulation, which is particularly expressed in avian autonomic and behavioral thermoregulation and, further, certain pathophysiological conditions of disturbed thermoregulation could be accounted for by assuming quantitatively different contributions of the central thermosensory inputs of thermoregulatory effector control, but maintaining the Q10 values of hypothalamic warn and cold signal transmission constant. The proposed model, while basically additive in its mathematical design, meets a number of properties described by multiplicative models of thermoregulation. In additionally generalizes these models of predicting that changes of hypothalamic temperature modify the sensitivities with which any thermoregulatory effector responds to any thermosensory input.