Interaction of air temperature and core temperatures in thermoregulation of the goat.

1. The interaction between air temperature, hypothalamus temperature, and spinal cord temperature in driving heat production and respiratory evaporative heat loss has been studied in conscious goats with chronically implanted thermodes. 2. Thermoregulatory heat production could be described as being approximately proportional to the sum of two linear drives determined by hypothalamus temperature and spinal cord temperature. This was found also for respiratory evaporative heat loss except that it was not influenced by spinal cord cooling. 3. Thermoregulatory heat production could be further described as being approximately proportional to a product of linear drives determined by hypothalamus and spinal cord temperature on one hand and air temperature on the other. Respiratory evaporative heat loss was approximately proportional to the sum of drives determined by spinal cord, hypothalamus and air temperatures. 4. Sensitivity to central cooling was found to undergo long-lasting but temporary changes which interfered with the immediate effects of air temperature on thermoregulation. 5. Central threshold temperatures for heat production and respiratory evaporative heat loss were found to be differently affected by air temperature. This indicates that integrating mechanisms for heat production and respiratory evaporative heat loss are to some extent functionally independent.