StudentMed

Fever is an elevation of body temperature that exceeds the normal daily variation and occurs in conjunction with an increase in the hypothalamic set point. just like the thermostat of a room is set up its the same way the shift from normothermic to the new set point. Many processes take place during this:    a. Vasomotor center in the brain is activated.    b. Vasoconstriction commences. First in the hands and the feet which leads to stopped blood flow           in periphery.    c. This decreases heat loss from the skin and thus person feels cold.   To compensate this some processes take place:    a. Shivering which increases the heat production from the muscles start to happen.    b. Shivering might not happen if heat conservation mechanisms are going on.    c. Non-shivering mechanism like heat production from the liver may help by keeping increased        ...

A very common illness or discomfort which can happen to anybody due to various reasons. It might be due to a very tiring day a bad lunch or many other reasons. In this topic, we will see what exactly is fever or how we describe it in medical terms. So the body temperature which is controlled by the hypothalamus when goes out of the ordinary we get a discomfort feeling which people call fever. So how is the body temperature controlled by the hypothalamus? Neurons in both the anterior and posterior hypothalamus receive two kind of signals : 1. One from the peripheral nerves ie. the warm and cold receptors of the skin. 2. Second from the temperature of the blood bathing the region of the body. These two signals get integrated by the thermoregulatory center of the hypothalamus to maintain the normal temperature of the body. When the body is in neutral temperature the metabolism of the body produces more heat than necessary which in turn maintains the body temperature at almo...