Brown adipose tissue appeared in mammals with the development of homeothermy. In consequence of this, their organism became able to maintain constant body temperature independent on the thermal conditions of the surroundings. This tissue-contrary to the white adipose tissue-is distributed only in certain restricted portions of the body. The paper deals with actual literary data of morphology and function of brown adipose tissue.

Insitute of Pathology Comenius University Bratislava Slovakia