ROLE OF THE PROSENCEPHALON IN SHIVERING 
Douglas G. Stuart 
Department of Physiology 
University of California Medical Center 
Los Angeles, California 
The experiments reported in this paper were designed to 
localize control of the production of shivering to a specific region 
of the hypothalamus and then to study some of the telencephalic 
influences that by hypothalamic relay could instigate, facilitate, or 
suppress shivering. 
First it was necessary to recognize the results of workers who 
have claimed that decerebrate preparations can shiver (Barbour, 
1939; Dworkin, 1930), even though such results conflict with those 
of the majority of investigators (Bard, 1961; Bardand Macht, 1958; 
Bazett and Penfield, 1922; Blair and Keller, 1946; Dusser de 
Barenne, 1920). If decerebrate preparations can shiver, it means 
that the primary control of shivering is in the midbrain or pons, 
since all the above investigators agree that shivering is abolished 
by transection of the caudal pons. 
However, over 60 years of evidence (Ott, 1895, to Keller, 1959) 
has implicated the hypothalamus as the primary "center" for the 
production of shivering. Since it was early shown that massive 
anterior hypothalamic destruction did not affect shivering (Bazett 
et al., 1922; Clark et al., 1939; Keller and Hare, 1932), it followed 
that the essential neurons were in the posterior hypothalamus. A 
more precise anatomical description invites controversy. Some 
investigators have studied this problem by noting the presence or 
absence of shivering after destruction of part of the posterior 
hypothalamus, but their results conflict in localizing the essential 
neurons to the dorsal posterior hypothalamus (Bazett et al., 1933; 
Blair and Keller, 1946), the ventro-medial mid hypothalamus 
(Frazier et al., 1936), the lateral posterior hypothalamus (Clark et 
al., 1939) and to the ventro-lateral posterior hypothalamus (Birzis 
and Hemingway, 1956). 
Other investigators have studied this problem by stimulating 
the intact brain to instigate shivering. In three laboratories 
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