The posterior nucleus of the hypothalamus is one of the many nuclei that make up the hypothalamic region of the

brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...

. Its functions include elevation of blood pressure, pupillary dilation, and shivering or body heat conservation (

thermoregulation Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature ...

). Damage or destruction of this nucleus causes hypothermia. Descending efferents from the nucleus synapse on the sympathetic neurons of the spinal cord, which exist in the thoracic and lumbar regions in the lateral horns.

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Hypothalamus {{Neuroanatomy-stub