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Nfalck t1_iuhzm38 wrote

Reply to comment by InfernalOrgasm in What is the actual mechanism by which the body generates a fever? by Pheophyting

Thank you! So the hypothalamus induces the fever primarily by reducing heat loss, e.g. by reducing blood flow to the skin surface and cutting off the sweat response, rather than increasing mechanical or chemical thermal generation? Or is it more of "there are lots of processes in the body that contribute to heat generation and heat loss, and the hypothalamus pulls all of them simultaneously?" Or is it that there are so many interrelated processes that it's not clear exactly which levers the hypothalamus is pulling, we just know that heat generation increases and heat dissipation becomes less efficient?

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InfernalOrgasm t1_iui0e0h wrote

We have a pretty good idea of how the immune system works; but we know less about how it works than we do know how it works (as far as we know). It's mostly reducing the amount of thermal energy lost, but doing "more work" does inherently increase thermal energy. So it's probably a balance of all of that.

Here's a good YouTube channel that covers quite a lot of the immune system in a very layman's kind of way.

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