Maternal thermal stimulation changes metabolic activity in fetal hypothalamus

What causes seasonality of birth in schizophrenia?

An excess of winter-spring births (and/or a decrease of summer births) has consistently been observed in schizophrenia (SCZ). This observation may provide a significant clue about the causes of the disease if specific factors which cause the phenomenon can be determined. This paper reviews several studies which investigated factors correlated with this observation in SCZ, in an attempt to determine which factors more likely cause the seasonality. Among the candidates of the factors are meteorological variables (such as ambient temperature), several infections, maternal hormones, sperm quality, nutrition and external toxins. A variation of procreation might also have an effect. Among the factors, the most extensively studied are temperature and viral infections. Some of them have appeared promising, but further studies are definitely required. Several challenges, including complicated correlations of the factors and determination of the susceptible period during pregnancy, need to be overcome. Comparisons of the data from areas and cohorts with different patterns of the candidate factors may be helpful. Animal studies may also help investigate the molecular and physiological mechanisms of the phenomenon.

Brain hyperthermia alters local cerebral glucose utilization: a comparison of hyperthermic agents

Microwaves have been proposed to alter neural functioning through both thermal and non-thermal mechanisms. We attempted to determine if local cerebral glucose utilization (LCGU) depends on the type of hyperthermic agent employed. We exposed the heads of rats to two different hyperthermic agents (5.6 GHz microwave exposure or exposure to hot/moist air) to create a 2 degree C rise in midbrain temperature. Other rats were sham exposed and remained normothermic. The 2-Deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) autoradiographic method was then used to determine LCGU during a 45-min period of stable hyperthermia. Hyperthermia (created by either hyperthermic agent) caused a general rise in brain glucose utilization. Hot-air exposed rats showed significantly higher LCGUs than microwaved rats in portions of the motor cortex, hypothalamus, lateral lemniscus and the substantia nigra (reticulata). Microwave exposure did not produce significantly higher levels of LCGU (compared to hot-air exposed hyperthermic controls) in any of the 47 brain areas sampled. A time analysis of lateral hypothalamic (LH) temperature during these different heating procedures revealed that microwave exposure produced a more-rapid rise in temperature than did not/moist air. Thus, we wondered if the nuclei-specific differences in LCGU could be explained by localized differences in rate of brain heating during the two hyperthermic treatments. In a second study we carefully matched both the rate of lateral hypothalamic temperature rise and the peak temperatures achieved by our two hyperthermic methods and again measured LH LCGUs. We found that this precise matching eliminated the difference in hypothalamic LCGU previously observed following microwave or hot-air exposure. These data suggest that hyperthermia causes a general rise in brain metabolism and that (as long as steady state and rate of local brain temperature increase are well matched) microwave and hot-air induced hyperthermia produce similar changes in LCGU.

Deoxyglucose uptake by mouse astrocytes: effects of temperature and retrovirus infection

Deoxyglucose uptake by FVB/N mouse astrocytes was studied before and after infection by ts1 retrovirus which causes a neurodegenerative disease in mice similar to HIV-1 encephalopathy in man. The Michaelis-Menten kinetic parameters, Km and Vmax, of 2-deoxy-D-glucose uptake by brain and cerebellar astrocytes were measured following culture at 34 degrees C where ts1 retrovirus replicates optimally, and at 37 degrees C. Compared to astrocytes cultured at 37 degrees C, astrocytes cultured at 34 degrees C had increased Km and decreased deoxyglucose uptake despite increased or unchanged Vmax. Following ts1 retrovirus infection, brain astrocyte deoxyglucose uptake doubled [132%] associated with decreased Km but unchanged Vmax, whereas cerebellar astrocyte deoxyglucose uptake doubled [102%] associated with increased Vmax but unchanged Km. These observations of altered deoxyglucose uptake kinetic parameters following retrovirus infection indicate different neurochemical mechanisms for the regional variation in deoxyglucose uptake observed following retrovirus infection of the CNS in vivo.