Skip to main content

MINI REVIEW article

Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Autonomic Neuroscience
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1437216
This article is part of the Research Topic Body Temperature Homeostasis: The Biological Thermostat View all 3 articles

How can heatstroke damage the brain? A mini review

Provisionally accepted

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Record-breaking heat waves over the past 20 years have led to a global increase in heatrelated deaths, including heatstroke. Heat-related illnesses occur when the body cannot adapt to the elevated temperatures in the environment, leading to various symptoms. In severe situations, such as heatstroke, the body temperature can rise above 40℃, leading to significant injury to body systems, with particular susceptibility of the central nervous system (CNS). Neuroimaging studies conducted months or years after a heatstroke have revealed cellular damage in the cerebellum and other brain regions, including the hippocampus, midbrain, and thalamus, with the potential for long-term neurological complications in survivors of a heatstroke. This mini review aimed to describe the mechanisms and pathways underlying the development of brain injury induced by heatstroke and identify diagnostic imaging tools and biomarkers for injury to the CNS due to a heatstroke.

    Keywords: heatstroke, Blood-Brain Barrier, Central nervous system injury, genetic analyses, diagnosis of heat-related illnesses.

    Received: 23 May 2024; Accepted: 05 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Yoneda, Hosomi, Ito, Togami, Oda, Matsumoto, Shimazaki, Ogura and Oda. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Sanae Hosomi, Osaka University, Suita, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.