{"id":43044,"date":"2026-07-07T13:30:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/extreme-heat-not-only-affects-the-heart-but-also-the-brain\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T13:30:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:30:55","slug":"extreme-heat-not-only-affects-the-heart-but-also-the-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/extreme-heat-not-only-affects-the-heart-but-also-the-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Extreme heat not only affects the heart, but also the brain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1230-1.jpg\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;margin-bottom:20px\"><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s too hot to think today!&#8221; Who among us has not said or heard it at least once during the last scorching days?, writes salute eu.<\/p>\n<p>It may seem like a common summer expression, but science is accumulating more and more evidence that when the thermometer exceeds certain temperatures, the brain enters a kind of &#8220;energy-saving mode&#8221; and works more slowly.<\/p>\n<p>According to a recent study, published in the scientific journal PLOS Climate, heat waves damage attention, memory and the ability to make decisions, confirming that climate change is a problem not only for the heart, but also for our brain.<\/p>\n<p>According to the researchers, during extreme heat, attention, memory, the ability to concentrate and the speed of decision-making decrease.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When the organism is engaged in cooling down, part of the physiological resources are redirected towards the regulation of body temperature&#8221;, explains Kimberly Meidenbauer, neuroscientist. cognitive and environmental studies at Washington State University, which has been studying the effects of high temperatures on the brain and behavior for years.<\/p>\n<p>The mechanism is similar to that of computers: when the temperature rises too much, the processor automatically reduces performance to avoid overheating.<\/p>\n<p>Even the brain, under similar conditions, has less energy available for more complex cognitive processes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In recent years &#8211; Meidenbauer adds &#8211; some analyzes have shown that extreme heat damages cognitive functions even in young and healthy people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Among the most popular studies is an experiment conducted in 2018 by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who followed a group of undergraduate students during a heat wave in Boston.<\/p>\n<p>Students who slept in buildings without air conditioning needed more time to solve cognitive tests and made more errors compared to those who rested in air-conditioned rooms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt only took a few days of intense heat to see a measurable decline in cognitive performance,\u201d he points out. Meidenbauer.<\/p>\n<p>The reason is, first of all, physiological.<\/p>\n<p>Although the brain makes up only about 2% of body weight, it consumes about 20% of the body&#8217;s available energy. When the outside temperature rises, a large part of these resources are used to keep the body at normal temperature.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, sweating increases, blood flow to the skin increases and the cardiovascular system works harder to dissipate the heat.<\/p>\n<p>This requires a lot of energy, leaving fewer resources for the brain, which thus has a harder time maintaining attention, memory, concentration and the ability to reason and make decisions.<\/p>\n<hr style=\"margin:30px 0\">\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#666\">Source: <strong>prizrenpost<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s too hot to think today!&#8221; Who among us has not said or heard it at least once during the last scorching days?, writes salute eu. It may seem like a common summer expression, but science is accumulating more and more evidence that when the thermometer exceeds certain temperatures, the brain enters a kind of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"views":30,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43046,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43044\/revisions\/43046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}