Thermoregulation: From basic neuroscience to clinical neurology, part 2

Abstract

This month (December, 2018), an extensive two-part book on thermoregulation [1,2] was released by Elsevier within the series “Handbook of Clinical Neurology” – one of the time-honored publications in the field of neurosciences published since the 1960s. As emphasized in Jürgen Werner’s review of Part 1 of the Handbook [3], it has been a long time since a comprehensive treatise of animal and human thermoregulation was put together. More importantly, a two-volume elaboration of nearly all aspects of body temperature regulation, such as the present project, has never been published before. In addition to this, the new book presents the entire complex theme of normal and pathological aspects of thermoregulation in the framework of Clinical Neurology, encompassing the continuum of functional aspects from normal and pathological physiology to clinical practice and other practical details of importance, including pertinent therapeutic means – all discussed on the basis of up-to-date information and pertinent theoretical background, animal experimental data and human medical experience. Most of the main pathophysiological and clinical points of interest have been handled in some detail by the volume editor in his introductory chapter (The thermoregulation system and how it works). The author, Andrej A. Romanovsky, has successfully exposed the salient sub-topics of normal and abnormal thermoregulatory phenomena occurring in the context of relevant animal or human fields. His chapter is followed by 53 other chapters, each commissioned to the best international experts of the field in question, with the length of the text largely being proportional to the importance and the amount of strong evidence available on the topic. Here, we review Part 2 of the book; this part consists of sections VI, VII and VIII.