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Human brains run hot — sometimes more than 40 °C

The temperature of a healthy brain rises and falls over the course of a day, but its average value is higher than the typical oral temperature.
Illustration of the temperature of the afternoon female brain (left), and temperature of the afternoon male brain (right).

Temperatures in female study participants’ brains (example, left) tended to be warmer than those of male participants. Pale yellow indicates 40 °C, purple shades roughly 37–38 °C. Credit: N. Rzechorzek/MRC LMB/Brain

Human brains are hot: they routinely maintain a temperature that would be considered a fever elsewhere in the body1.

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Nature 606, 627 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01654-7

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 20 June 2022: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that brain-temperature data from people with traumatic brain injury had been published previously. The article also misspelt the first author’s surname.

References

  1. Rzechorzek, N. M. et al. Brain https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awab466 (2022).

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