Warmer brain temperature makes women ‘hot headed’

WOMEN are more “hot headed” than men as their brains are almost half a degree warmer, new research suggests.

Analysis of 40 people found that women’s brains tend to be 0.4C warmer than those of men, on average.

The study, run by the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge (LMB), found that brains often exceed 40C, much warmer than the rest of the body, with core temperature normally around 37C.

In healthy men and women, where the temperature in the mouth is typically less than 37C, average brain temperature is 38.5C.

However, deeper brain regions can often be hotter than 40C, particularly in women during the daytime, with the highest observed brain temperature being 40.9C.

Dr John O’neill, group leader at the LMB, said: “The most surprising finding from our study is that the healthy human brain can reach temperatures that would be diagnosed as fever anywhere else in the body.

“Such high temperatures have been measured in people with brain injuries in the past, but had been assumed to result from the injury.

“We found that brain temperature drops at night before you go to sleep and rises during the day.

“There is good reason to believe this daily variation is associated with longterm brain health – something we hope to investigate next.”

The brain-scanning technique, called magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), has enabled researchers to measure brain temperature non-invasively in healthy people.

The research is published in Brain.