Question: Do you have any idea of which part of the brain is responsible for hibernation?

Mike Ambler answered on 6 Nov 2018:

Hi Paulito, thanks for the question!

I am beginning to get an idea of which part of the brain makes the animal hibernate. It seems to be the same part that controls body temperature, sleep, and eating and drinking. This area is called the hypothalamus, and it is right in the middle of the brain. The next stage in my research is going to be to try to selectively switch on or off individual parts of the hypothalamus and see whether it either makes the animal hibernate, or stops it from being able to hibernate.

One of the things the animal needs to do is switch off heat production, and stop all unnecessary cellular activities. This is the part that I’m really interested in because if we could make humans do it then they might be more able to survive being very unwell on the intensive care unit in hospital.

So an animal that is hibernating has to stop shivering or making heat so that it can cool right down, it has to stop moving, it has to switch from using sugar as its fuel to using fat, and its kidneys must stop making urine (wee). We are only just starting to try to understand how all these interesting things happen – this is why science is fun!