The FASEB Journal, Vol 7, 1148-1152, Copyright © 1993 by The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

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Specialized brain cooling in humans?

GL Brengelmann
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington, Seattle 98195.

Humans, compared to other species, have exceptional capability for dissipation of heat from the entire skin surface. We can secrete more than two liters per hour of sweat, indefinitely. The corresponding potential for evaporative cooling is near a thousand watts, sufficient to compensate for the extreme high levels of heat production during exercise. Also, the blood vessels of our skin have exceptional capability to dilate and deliver heat to the body surface. These are our special adaptations for thermal stress. They allow prolonged heavy exercise with modest elevations in the temperature of the fluid that cools all the internal organs, not just the brain-arterial blood. The vascular architecture of the human head is radically different from that of animals that exhibit SBC. These species have special adaptations that reflect their dependence on respiratory evaporation, particularly the limitation imposed on capability to dispose of heat produced during exercise. The increase in blood temperature in an intense sprint would heat the well-perfused brain rapidly. But the heat exchange over the large surface area of contact between a venous plexus cooled by respiratory evaporation and the meshwork of arterial vessels in the carotid rete precools blood bound for the brain. Specialized cooling of the brain (SBC) has not been demonstrated by direct measurements in humans. Changes in tympanic temperature (Tty) are taken as evidence for SBC. This continues an unfortunate tradition of exaggeration of the significance of Tty. In the only direct measurements available, brain temperature was unaffected by fanning the face although Tty did fall. What may appear to be a remnant of the carotid rete heat exchanger in humans is the intimate association between a short segment of the internal carotid artery and the plexus of veins in the cavernous sinus. Fortunately, the brain need not rely for its cooling on countercurrent heat exchange across this small surface area of contact. In humans, SBC stands for skin: the body cooler--we use our entire skin surface for heat dissipation.

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