The Brain is Hypothermic in Mitochondrial Disease, but is it in Autism?
Having noted in the previous post something as simple, and measurable, as reduced blood flow in the brain exists in autism, I decided to dig a little deeper. Not only can you measure blood flow in specific regions of the brain, but using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy you can measure the temperature of the brain. Intense heat production is an essential feature of normal brain energetics; most of the energy used for brain functioning is eventually released as heat. In the brain, heat is produced mostly by mitochondrial oxidative chemical reactions. Most of the energy required for brain activity is generated from the net chemical reaction of oxygen and glucose; some of this energy (33 % ) is immediately dissipated into heat, and the rest (67 % ) is used to synthesize ATP. The final ATP hydrolysis releases part of the energy back to the system as heat. Note that your core temperature is not the same as your brain temperature. Brain temperature T br should be near constant Increas...