In a new study this week, revelations were made about the brain temperatures of healthy individuals. The researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Molecular Biology Laboratory, UK, found out that healthy brain temperatures can even get as hot as 105 degrees. The results of the research implied that brain temperature can be different depending on several factors, such as time of the day, area of brain, mainly indicating that it is generally hotter than the rest of the human body.
Data research of brain study
The researchers studied brain temperature data by creating two groups of people. One group included patients receiving intensive care who got their brains scanned as part of a different study earlier (for traumatic brain injuries), while the other group had healthy individuals who volunteered to get their brains scanned for this particular study. Temperatures were analyzed in both the groups during the entire course of day, including morning, afternoon, as well as evening.
It was found that the average brain temperature for both groups was 101.3 degrees Fahrenheit (38.5 degrees Celsius), which was more than the oral temperature. However, there were a lot of changes in that data. It was also concluded that the brain temperatures in individuals were mostly less at night and more in the deeper areas of the brain as compared to the surface. Women and older adults also had raised brain temperatures. The results of this study have been published in the journal Brain.
Although, the preceding findings constitute several important medical implications but it has to be validated by other researchers as well. Firstly, it’s previously assumed that having a hot brain can raise the risk of neurological complications; however, for healthy brains, the temperatures could go as high as 105.62 degree Fahrenheit with no visible problems. For patients who were in critical condition, the team didn’t find a vivid relationship between higher brain temperature and their survival chances.
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In a statement, study author John O’Neill, Group Leader at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology, said, "We concluded that brain temperature dips at night before going off to sleep and increases in the course of the day. These everyday changes might be linked to long-term brain health, which is something that we want to focus on next." The researchers said that if their hypothesis is actually true, then it might be possible to improve brain disorders diagnosis through these temperature changes or to make the current treatments better.
