B12.1 Controlling body temperatures Flashcards
What is the optimum temperature for enzymes?
37 degrees - temperature at which your enzymes work best
What can affect your internal body temp?
Exercise
Fevers
Surroundings
What does the control of your core body temperature relies on?
Thermoregulatory centre in the hypothalamus in your brain. Centre contains receptors which are sensitive to temperature changes
What happens when your core body temperature starts to rise?
Vasodilation happens
More sweat
Why does vasodilation happen?
Blood vessels that supply your surface skin capillaries dilate(open wider)
Lets more flood through the capillaries.
Your skin flushes so you transfer more energy by radiation from your skin to the surroundings
Why is there an increase in sweat during high body temperatures?
Extra sweat is produce from glands - cools down as your body evaporates from your skin - transferring energy to the environement
What happens in humid weather?
The water in sweat does not evaporate much easier - making it harder to keep cool due to more water vapour filling the air already
What happens when your core body temperature is very low?
Vasoconstriction
Sweat production decreases
Skeletal muscles contract and relax
Why does vasoconstriction happen?
Blood vessels that supply your skin capillaries constrict to reduce the flow of blood.
This reduce energy transferred by radiation through the surface of your skin
Why is there a reduction in sweat when your body temp is low?
Less water from the sweat evaporates so less energy is transferred to the environment
Why does the skeletal muscles contract and relax?
Causes you to shiver. Muscles contractions need lots of respiration an exothermic process - energy transferred from the reaction raises your body temp
What detects body temperature?
Thermoregulatory centre
What is the role of the thermoregulatory centre?
The thermoregulatory centre is sensitive to the temperature of blood flowing
through it.
It also receives information about skin temperature from receptors in
skin and coordinates body’s responses to keep the core temperature at 37 °C
