Cold memories control whole-body thermoregulatory responses

Scientists at Trinity College Dublin discover the brain’s way of making ‘cold’ memories

The brain remembers ‘cold experiences’ through physical and chemical changes – called engrams – that then tell the body to make more heat.

Cold memories control whole-body thermoregulatory responses

Environmental thermal challenges trigger the brain to coordinate both autonomic and behavioural responses to maintain optimal body temperature1–4. It is unknown how temperature information is precisely stored and retrieved in the brain and how it is converted into a physiological response. Here we investigated whether memories could control whole-body metabolism by training mice to remember a thermal challenge. Mice were conditioned to associate…

Just the memory of being cold can change the body's temperature regula

A study in mice suggests that the memory of being cold can change the body's metabolism and temperature regulation, even when that environment is no longer cold. The researchers put mice in a cold environment where the temperature was only 4 °C, and the mice learned to associate that environment with cold temperatures. When these mice were later returned to the same environment that was at a milder 21 °C, the mice still had a high metabolic rate…