title: Study on the cold and hot properties of medicinal herbs by thermotropism in mice behavior.
abstract: It is a common sense that chewing a mint leaf causes a cold feeling, while masticating a piece of ginger root is associated with a hot sensation. The Traditional Chinese Medicine has termed this phenomenon as cold and hot properties of herbs and applied them in treating certain human diseases successfully for thousands of years. Here, we have developed an Animal Thermotropism Behavior Surveillance System, and by using this device and other approaches, we not only verified the existence of, but also characterized and quantitated the cold and hot properties of medicinal herbs in animal behavioral experiments. The results suggested that the hot and cold properties of herbal drugs indeed correlated with the alteration of animal behavior in search for residence temperature.
authors.affiliation: China Military Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, 302 Military Hospital, 100# the 4th Ring Road, Beijing 100039, PR China.
authors.forename: Yan-Ling
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Jia-Bo
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Xiao-He
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: Hai-ping
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Can-ping
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Xue-ru
authors.initials: XR
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yong-shen
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jia
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003080:Cold Temperature; D006358:Hot Temperature; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D010946:Plants, Medicinal; D012677:Sensation