THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BODY 

 TEMPERATURE AND FOOD AND WATER INTAKE 



B. Andersson, C. C. Gale* and J. W. SuNDSTENf 

 Department of Physiology, Kungl. Veterinarhogskolan, Stockholm 51 



Twenty-five years ago Beattie (1938) stated : "The physiology of the 

 hypothalamus is the physiology of the internal environment." This state- 

 ment may have been an exaggeration. Nevertheless, numerous mechanisms 

 of importance for the maintenance of a constant internal environment are 

 undoubtedly controlled or influenced by the hypothalamus. This certainly 

 holds true for the regulation of body temperature and the control of food 

 and water intake. These hypothalamic functions have for some time been 

 the subject of study in this laboratory, where unanesthetized goats have 

 been used as experimental animals. Recently special attention has been 

 paid to the thermoregulatory and alimentary eff'ects of hypothalamic cool- 

 ing and warming. The technique used has allowed local cooling or warm- 

 ing of the preoptic region and the anterior hypothalamus for long periods 

 of time in unrestrained goats maintained in their normal environment 

 (Andersson and Larsson, 1961 ; Andersson, Gale and Sundsten, 1962a ; 

 Andersson, Ekman, Gale and Sundsten 1962c). 



In the following an attempt will be made to review the results of these 

 studies in the light of present knowledge of the regulation of body tempera- 

 ture and of mechanisms controlling food and water intake. 



HYPOTHALAMIC TEMPERATURE AND THERMOREGULATION 



The mechanisms maintaining a constant body temperature in warm- 

 blooded animals have for more than a century received great interest and 

 have become the subject of numerous experimental studies. The results of 

 these studies have led to the present view that both peripheral temperature 

 receptors and central temperature " detectors " participate in the regula- 

 tion of body temperature. (For recent reviews see von Euler, 1961 and 

 Hardy, 1961.) An abundant inflow from peripheral cold receptors may 

 thus activate cold defence mechanisms such as shivering and peripheral 



* Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Division of Neurological Diseases and Blindness, 

 U.S. Public Health Service. 



t Postdoctoral Fellow, Division of Biological and Medical Science, National Science 

 Foundation. 



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