Fever and Antipyresis
The Role of the Nervous System

This book provides a detailed overview of the function of the nervous system in fever and its role in antipyresis.

Keith E. Cooper (Author)

9780521072038, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 August 2008

200 pages, 45 b/w illus. 7 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.32 kg

"...this excellent and useful volume is rounded off with the author's synthesis of the material presented and what it means, along with his own provocative and stimulating speculations on where future research in this exciting field might lead." John T. Stitt, The Quarterly Review of Biology

This book provides a detailed overview of the function of the nervous system in fever and its role in antipyresis. The volume opens with an introductory account of fever, its physiology and adaptive role, and explains the mechanisms of thermoregulation. Sufficient information about bacterial pyrogens, 'endogenous' pyrogenic cytokines, body temperature regulation and survival value of fever and its ubiquity is given to enable readers to follow the central nervous system's involvement. The book should enable graduate students and researchers in neuroscience and other disciplines to understand the impact of their studies in the overall processes of fever. It will also be of benefit to pharmacologists studying anti-pyretics and the central nervous system function of these drugs. Academic clinicians will find this a more comprehensive overview of fever than other available texts. Finally, the author challenges some well-established dogmas in this area and sets an agenda for future research.

Preface
1. Fever – definition, usefulness, ubiquity
2. Thermoregulation – an outline
3. The nature of pyrogens, their origins and mode of release
4. The loci of action of endogenous mediators of fever
5. Beyond the loci of action of circulating pyrogens: mediators and mechanisms
6. The role of the cerebral cortex, the limbic system, peripheral nervous system and spinal cord, and induced changes in intracranial pressure
7. Antipyresis
8. Febrile convulsions in children and a possible role for vasopressin
9. A synthesis, predictions and speculation from my armchair
Appendix 1: Anatomical considerations
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Clinical & internal medicine [MJ]