Shivering

Today we will talk about Shivering. This topic is of great importance today and has generated great interest in society. Shivering has had an impact in different areas, from politics to popular culture. It is crucial to understand its influence in order to understand the complexity of our current reality. In this article we will explore different aspects related to Shivering, from its origin to its future implications. We hope that this reading is informative and provokes reflection on Shivering and its impact on our world.

"Shiver" redirects here. For other uses, see Shiver (disambiguation).
A woman shivering from cold

Shivering (also called shuddering) is a bodily function in response to cold and extreme fear in warm-blooded animals.[1] When the core body temperature drops, the shivering reflex is triggered to maintain homeostasis.[1] Skeletal muscles begin to shake in small movements, creating warmth by expending energy. Shivering can also be a response to fever, as a person may feel cold.[2] During fever, the hypothalamic set point for temperature is raised.[3] The increased set point causes the body temperature to rise (pyrexia), but also makes a person feel cold until the new set point is reached.[3]

Biological basis

Located in the posterior hypothalamus near the wall of the third ventricle is an area called the primary motor center for shivering.[4] 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 and becomes activated when the body temperature falls even a fraction of a degree below a critical temperature level.[5] The center then causes rapid contractions of skeletal muscles, producing heat as a byproduct.[6]

Newborn babies, infants, and young children experience a greater (net) heat loss than adults because of greater surface-area-to-volume ratio. As they cannot shiver to maintain body heat,[7] they rely on non-shivering thermogenesis. Children have an increased amount of brown adipose tissue (increased vascular supply, and high mitochondrial density), and, when cold-stressed, will have greater oxygen consumption and will release norepinephrine.[8] Norepinephrine will react with lipases in brown fat to break down fat into triglycerides.[9] Triglycerides are then metabolized to glycerol and non-esterified fatty acids.[10] These are then further degraded in the needed heat-generating process to form CO2 and water.[10] Chemically, in mitochondria, the proton gradient producing the proton electromotive force that is ordinarily used to synthesize ATP is instead bypassed to produce heat directly.[11]

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

In humans, shivering can also be caused by cognition.[12] This is known as psychogenic shivering.[13][14]

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.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Hemingway, Allan (July 1963). "Shivering". Physiological Reviews. 43 (3): 397–422. doi:10.1152/physrev.1963.43.3.397. ISSN 0031-9333.
  2. ^ Holtzclaw, Barbara J. (1993-01-01). "The Shivering Response". Annual Review of Nursing Research. 11 (1): 31–55. doi:10.1891/0739-6686.11.1.31. ISSN 0739-6686.
  3. ^ a b Balli, Swetha; Shumway, Karlie R.; Sharan, Shweta (2025), "Physiology, Fever", StatPearls, Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing, PMID 32966005, retrieved 2025-04-03
  4. ^ Bear, Matthew H.; Reddy, Vamsi; Bollu, Pradeep C. (2022-10-10), "Neuroanatomy, Hypothalamus", StatPearls , StatPearls Publishing, PMID 30252249, retrieved 2025-03-10
  5. ^ "Regulation of body temperature by the nervous system".
  6. ^ McCuller, Christopher; Jessu, Rishita; Callahan, Avery L. (2025), "Physiology, Skeletal Muscle", StatPearls, Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing, PMID 30725824, retrieved 2025-03-10
  7. ^ "Muscle Non-shivering Thermogenesis and Its Role in the Evolution of Endothermy".
  8. ^ Gilsanz, Vicente; Hu, Houchun H.; Kajimura, Shingo (2012-10-22). "Relevance of brown adipose tissue in infancy and adolescence". Pediatric Research. 73 (1): 3–9. doi:10.1038/pr.2012.141. ISSN 0031-3998. Archived from the original on 2025-02-04.
  9. ^ Zhou, Anqiang; Kondo, Mari; Matsuura, Yukinaga; Kameda, Kenji; Morimoto, Chie; Tsujita, Takahiro; Okuda, Hiromichi (1995-04-01). "Mechanism of norepinephrine-induced lipolysis in isolated adipocytes: evidence for its lipolytic action inside the cells". Pathophysiology. 2 (1): 29–34. doi:10.1016/0928-4680(95)00004-K. ISSN 0928-4680.
  10. ^ a b "Triglycerides". eClinpath. Retrieved 2025-03-10.
  11. ^ Alberts, Bruce; Johnson, Alexander; Lewis, Julian; Raff, Martin; Roberts, Keith; Walter, Peter (2002), "Electron-Transport Chains and Their Proton Pumps", Molecular Biology of the Cell. 4th edition, Garland Science, retrieved 2025-03-10
  12. ^ Goldstein A. (1980). Thrills in response to music and other stimuli. Physiol. Psychol. 8, 126–129.
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ 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
  15. ^ Ring, Francis J. and Phillips, Barbara, Recent Advances in Medical Thermology, pp. 31-33; Springer Publishing, 1984
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