Hypothermia in Cats during Physical Restraint.

The hypothermia which sometimes occurred in cats during physical restraint was on the average accompanied by decreased heat production and by increased heat loss. These changes were facultative rather than obligatory correlates of physical restraint andor the unfamiliar surroundings in which the restraint took place. The decreased heat production was due to a temporary attenuation or loss of the increase in oxygen consumption rate which follows a decrease in medial preoptic and anterior hypothalamic temperature, and the increased heat loss appeared to be largely due to temporary hyperventilation. It was suggested that an emotional response to the stress of physical restraint induced a reversible changes within the medial preoptic region and the anterior hypothalamus which somehow temporarily modified the normal medial preoptic and anterior hypothalamic thermoregulatory response to a decline in core temperature. Author