体温调节（thermoregulation），指温度感受器接受体内和外在环境温度的刺激，通过体温调节中枢的活动，引起内分泌腺、骨骼肌、皮肤血管和汗腺等组织、器官活动的改变，从而调整产热和散热的过程，使体温保持在相对恒定的水平。为动物在长期进化过程中获得的较高级的调节功能。

体温调节的中枢位于下视丘。传统生理学认为，在下视丘前部存在着散热中枢，而下视丘后部则存在着产热中枢，两个中枢之间有着交互抑制的关系，从而保持了体温的相对稳定。

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 as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation. The internal thermoregulation process is one aspect of homeostasis: a state of dynamic stability in an organism's internal conditions, maintained far from thermal equilibrium with its environment (the study of such processes in zoology has been called physiological ecology). If the body is unable to maintain a normal temperature and it increases significantly above normal, a condition known as hyperthermia occurs. For humans, this occurs when the body is exposed to constant temperatures of approximately 55 °C (131 °F), and with prolonged exposure (longer than a few hours) at this temperature and up to around 75 °C (167 °F) death is almost inevitable. Humans may also experience lethal hyperthermia when the wet bulb temperature is sustained above 35 °C (95 °F) for six hours. The opposite condition, when body temperature decreases below normal levels, is known as hypothermia.