That Neuroscience Guy - Neuroscience Bites-Your Brain When its Cold

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

In today's Neuroscience Bite, we discuss why your brain can be more active when its cold versus when its hot. 

Hi, my name is Olof Kreg Olsson, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to another Neuroscience Byte. So this came from you, the listeners. Remember, you can send in ideas on threads or X at that neuroscience guy, or you can email us at that neuroscience guy at gmail.com. And the question was simple. You know, my brain seems to work better when I'm cold. And I'm sure you've all experienced this, right? You know, this morning here in Canada,

it was a little cold when I went out for a morning walk. And you know, my brain felt like it was more focused very quickly in the cold air. So we'd got this request come in and I was experiencing this myself this morning. So I just did a bit of reading. That's what I do. And I dove into some research papers and did a little reading. And the explanation is incredibly simple. And basically, your brain struggles when it's warm and works better when it's cold. And the reason for that is simple.

The energy basically comes from glucose, all right? And glucose is used throughout your body for any number of things, but it's also necessary for the brain's mental processes, like for you to think, for you to process information, for you to focus on things, to solve problems. And what happens is cooling off your body, so when it's extremely warm outside, takes more glucose and more energy than it does to warm up the body when it's cold. So basically, when you're trying to cool yourself down, there's less overall energy for the brain. When you're trying to warm yourself up, there's more energy for the brain. Now, the problem here you might have seen is there is an optimal sort of temperature probably where you're not

using glucose to go one way or the other. And that would mean your brain is most optimal. But in terms of when it's really hot versus when it's really cold, all right, that's why your brain seems to perform better when you're really cold. Now, before you go jump in an ice bath to make your major decisions in life, you also have to realize that you're going to run out of glucose to warm yourself up, and your thinking will be impacted quite quickly. And the other thing too, is a pure alertness thing. Your brain, when you feel cold, all of a sudden your blood starts flowing more, your heart's pumping, you're breathing differently than when it's hot. When you're hot, you might have noticed you're sluggish by default. And that sluggishness basically, you know, reduces blood flow throughout the body, which reduces the efficiency of the brain. Whereas when you're trying to warm yourself up, all right, blood flow, everything's going on. And that means your brain's

going to be more active as well. This is of course why there's a positive benefit of exercise on brain function. Anyway, that's all I have for this neuroscience bite, why your brain works better when it's cold. Thanks for sending that one in. Don't forget to check out the website, thatneuroscienceguy.com, and of course the podcast. If you haven't already, please subscribe, and thank you so much for listening. My name is Olof Kregolsen, and I'm that neuroscience guy. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you soon for another full episode of the podcast.