Shivering

Shivering (also called shuddering) is a bodily function in response to cold and extreme

pyrexia), but also makes the patient feel cold until the new set point is reached. Severe chills

with violent shivering are called rigors. Rigors occur because the patient's body is shivering in a physiological attempt to increase body temperature to the new set point.

Biological basis

Located in the posterior hypothalamus near the wall of the third ventricle is an area called the primary motor center for shivering.^{[citation needed]} This area is normally inhibited by signals from the heat center in the anterior hypothalamic-preoptic area but is excited by cold signals from the skin and spinal cord. Therefore, this center becomes activated when the body temperature falls even a fraction of a degree below a critical temperature level.^{[citation needed]}

Increased muscular activity results in the generation of heat as a byproduct. Most often, when the purpose of the muscle activity is to produce motion, the heat is wasted energy. In shivering, the heat is the main intended product and is utilized for warmth.^{[citation needed]}

Newborn babies, infants, and young children experience a greater (net) heat loss than adults because of greater

proton electromotive force that is ordinarily used to synthesize ATP is instead bypassed to produce heat directly.^{[citation needed}

]

Shivering can also appear after surgery. This is known as postanesthetic shivering.

In humans, shivering can also be caused by mere cognition.

psychogenic shivering.^[2]^[3]

Shivering and the elderly

The functional capacity of the thermoregulatory system alters with aging, reducing the resistance of elderly people to extreme external temperatures. The shiver response may be greatly diminished or even absent in the elderly, resulting in a significant drop in mean deep body temperature upon exposure to cold. Standard tests of thermoregulatory function show a markedly different rate of decline of thermoregulatory processes in different individuals with ageing.[4]

References

^ Goldstein A. (1980). Thrills in response to music and other stimuli. Physiol. Psychol. 8, 126–129.
^ Schoeller, F., Eskinazi, M., Garreau, D. (2018) Dynamics of the knowledge instinct: Effects of incoherence on the cognitive system. Cognitive Systems Research 47: 85-91.
^ Oka, T. (2015). Psychogenic fever: how psychological stress affects body temperature in the clinical population. Temperature: Multidisciplinary Biomedical Journal, 2(3), 368–378. http://doi.org/10.1080/23328940.2015.1056907
^ Ring, Francis J. and Phillips, Barbara, Recent Advances in Medical Thermology, pp. 31-33; Springer Publishing, 1984

External links

Media related to Shivering at Wikimedia Commons
Shivering at the U.S. National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

[1] Goldstein A. (1980). Thrills in response to music and other stimuli. Physiol. Psychol. 8, 126–129.

[2] Schoeller, F., Eskinazi, M., Garreau, D. (2018) Dynamics of the knowledge instinct: Effects of incoherence on the cognitive system. Cognitive Systems Research 47: 85-91.

[3] Oka, T. (2015). Psychogenic fever: how psychological stress affects body temperature in the clinical population. Temperature: Multidisciplinary Biomedical Journal, 2(3), 368–378. http://doi.org/10.1080/23328940.2015.1056907

[4] Ring, Francis J. and Phillips, Barbara, Recent Advances in Medical Thermology, pp. 31-33; Springer Publishing, 1984

[2]

[3]

Biological basis

Shivering and the elderly

See also

References

External links