The results of a study in rodents carried out by scientists at Nagoya University suggest that a group of neurons, called EP3 neurons, in the preoptic area (POA) of the brain play a key role in regulating body temperature in mammals. The discovery could pave the way for the development of technology that artificially adjusts body temperature, as a way of helping to treat conditions such as heat stroke, or hypothermia, and potentially obesity.
“On top of that, this technology could lead to new strategies for survival of people in hotter global environments, which are becoming a serious worldwide problem,” said research lead Kazuhiro Nakamura, PhD. The scientists reported on their study in Science Advances, in a paper titled, “Prostaglandin EP3 receptor–expressing preoptic neurons bidirectionally control body temperature via tonic GABAergic signaling.”
