[Thermoregulatory behavior and its central circuit mechanism-What thermosensory pathway drives it?]

ABSTRACT

Thermoregulatory behavior in homeothermic animals is an instinctive behavior to reduce the cost of their homeothermy, such as warm-seeking behavior to reduce metabolic energy for heat production in cold environments. A recent study identified the central neural pathway that transmits cutaneous thermosensory information on environmental temperature to drive thermoregulatory behavior. This study proposed that the brain mechanism that drives thermoregulatory behavior does not require conscious"feeling"(i.e., perception)of skin temperature mediated by the spinothalamocortical pathway, whereas thermosensory information that ascends through the spinal cord and the lateral parabrachial nucleus of the pons generates thermal comfort and discomfort that drive thermoregulatory behavior.