2020 Volume 60 Issue 3 Pages 203-209
Psychological stress induces various physiological responses by affecting the central neural circuit controlling the sympathetic nervous system. Body temperature elevation is one of those stress responses, and strong psychological stressors often induce the symptom called psychogenic fever. Psychological stress responses are fundamental in mammals, and therefore, the central circuit mechanisms for these responses have been a focus of research. It may be helpful to compare between the circuit mechanisms of stress-induced hyperthermia and inflammation-induced fever. Both hyperthermic responses share the descending sympathoexcitatory pathway from the dorsomedial hypothalamus through the rostral medullary raphe to the spinal cord, which stimulates thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue. However, the mechanisms to excite the sympathoexcitatory neurons in the dorsomedial hypothalamus are different between the two hyperthermic responses. Inflammation or infection induces fever by exciting the dorsomedial hypothalamus neurons through neuromodulation by the action of prostaglandin E2 in the preoptic area. In contrast, psychological stress activates neural pathways from the corticolimbic system to the dorsomedial hypothalamus to drive stress-induced hyperthermia and other sympathetic responses.
