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Response of the Thermoregulatory System to Toxic Chemicals
Citation:
Gordon, C. Response of the Thermoregulatory System to Toxic Chemicals. Chapter 25, Devashish Shrivastava (ed.), Theory and Applications of Heat Transfer in Humans, Volume 1. Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ, 1:529-552, (2018).
Impact/Purpose:
This is a chapter that summaries years of work on the effects of toxic chemicals on thermoregulation. The chapter is to be published in a book entitled "Theory and Applications of Heat Transfer in Human"
Description:
The thermoregulatory system plays a crucial role in the physiological response to pesticides, airborne pollutants, and other toxic agents. The exposure to toxicants via inhalation, cutaneous absorption, or ingestion, their clearance from the body, the physiological responses, deleterious as well their lethal effects is affected directly by body temperature and indirectly by environmental temperature. Our understanding of the effects of temperature on toxic responses has grown in the past several decades with the development of better methods to study autonomic and behavioral thermoregulatory responses in rodents and other species. The thermoregulatory response to acute exposure to many toxic chemicals involves a regulated hypothermic response, characterized by activation of autonomic thermoeffectors to increase heat loss and a behavioral preference for cooler temperatures. In rodents, the thermoeffector response is manifested quickly with a rapid drop in the core temperature. A combination of exposure to cool temperatures and a moderate hypothermic response has been found to benefit survival to most classes of toxic chemicals. Thus, the integrated thermoregulatory response of rodents to lower their core temperature appears to be an adaptive response. However, in humans and other large mammals, the hypothermic response is typically minimal or nonexistent due to thermal inertia. Fever-like response is often seen in humans and other large mammals exposed to various toxicants. A fever is also seen in rodents exposed to many toxicants provided that core temperature can be monitored without disturbing the animal (e.g., telemetry). Overall, the universal effects of temperature on chemical toxicity call for researchers to have a better understanding of how body and ambient temperature affect the toxic response of environmental toxicants.
