Irreversible impairment of thermoregulation induced by capsaicin and similar pungent substances in rats and guinea‐pigs

Abstract

1. In rats and guinea‐pigs a subcutaneous or intraperitoneal injection of capsaicin, the substance responsible for the pungency of red pepper, produces profound hypothermia associated with skin vasodilatation. 2. After large doses of capsaicin rats and guinea‐pigs become insensitive to the hypothermic action of capsaicin. This densensitization is apparently irreversible since it is present months after the capsaicin treatment. 3. Capsaicin‐desensitized animals are no longer able to protect themselves against overheating but respond with pronounced hyperthermia to high ambient temperatures (32–40° C). Temperature regulation against cold exposure, however, is not impaired. 4. They also respond with an enhanced hyperthermia to painful stimuli such as repeated pinching of the tail or repeated introduction of the thermometer probe into the rectum. 5. The enhanced hyperthermias are not due to increased heat production but to impairment of the heat dissipating mechanisms, which in rats and guinea‐pigs acts mainly through evaporation of saliva, and skin vasodilatation. 6. Acylamides with pungent action related to capsaicin such as piperine, caprinoyl‐p‐aminophenol and propionyl vanillylamide also cause hypothermia followed by desensitization and their efficacy is dependent on their pungency. The non‐pungent nonenoyl benzylamide produces neither hypothermia nor desensitization. 7. Capsaicin and its related pungent acylamides appear first to stimulate and then to desensitize the hypothalamic warmth detectors. By stimulating them the acylamides evoke reflexly the hypothermic response, whereas after desensitization the protective thermoregulatory reflexes for heat dissipation are no longer activated in response to high ambient temperature and to painful stimuli.