A small study reported that women’s brains are much hotter than men’s, and their brain temperature is likely to be above 40°C.
Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, found that women’s brains were about 0.4 degrees Celsius hotter than men’s.
In their study published in the journal “Brain”, the researchers suggest that this temperature difference is driven by the menstrual cycle, after most women were examined in the post-ovulatory stage, as their brain temperature was also about 0.4 degrees Celsius warmer than the women examined in the menstrual cycle. Pre-ovulation stage.
One of the most surprising discoveries in the new study was that a healthy human brain can reach temperatures that can be diagnosed as “fever” anywhere else in the body.
The study team looked at the brains of 40 healthy people – half of them women – using a relatively new technique called magnetic resonance spectroscopy, which uses magnetic resonance imaging devices to measure the temperature of different parts of the brain, and this was the first time this technique had been used to measure the difference in temperature. Brain temperature during the day and throughout the menstrual cycle.
The results showed that the brain’s temperature ranged from 36.1 degrees Celsius to 40.9 degrees Celsius, with an average reading of 2.5 degrees Celsius higher than the body temperature recorded in the mouth, something that the researchers consider reasonable because the brain is very metabolically active.
The highest readings came from the thalamus, one of the deepest parts of the brain, which may be less cooled by the organ’s blood vessels.
The team also found that the brain is about 0.9 degrees Celsius cooler at night, likely due to increased blood flow to the organ during sleep.
Scientists reveal the secret behind the higher temperature of the brains of women than their male counterparts
