You can combine MeSH and  keywords in PubMed searches. Keywords are particularly useful for finding recent articles.

Write down the concepts you want to search.
Underneath each concept write down any synonyms or alternative terms you can think of.

Use the MeSH database to find at least one medical subject heading for each of your concepts.
The MeSH for Pineal is Pineal Gland.

Add this to your logic grid and add the tag [mh] after the term.
This will force PubMed to search for pineal gland only as a subject heading.

Also look at the Entry Terms on the MeSH screen to see if you can find other terms that an authors might use in a title or abstract to describe the content of their articles.

Add the tag [tiab] to pineal so that you force PubMed to search for this term in the titles and abstracts of citations.
This will mean that you aren't searching for pineal in author's addresses, or the titles of journals.
Limiting your searches to subject headings, titles, or abstracts will help to make most of the results relevant.

I've also included a search for epiphysis cerebri in titles as abstracts, as some authors may use this older term for the gland.

Now do the same thing for the next concept thermoregulation.
The MeSH is body temperature regulation.

Look through the Entry Terms to see if there are other terms that might be worth searching.

Notice that I've used * at the end of some of the word stems.
This *is the truncation symbol used in PubMed.
It's like the ? used in the Uni of Adelaide catalogue.
Any word (or phrase) that begins with the letters to the left of the truncation symbol will be included in the search.

e.g. sweat* will find citations that include sweat OR sweated OR sweater OR sweating OR sweats etc

Return to the MeSH database and look at the more specific MeSH listed under body temperature regulation.

Although when you search the MeSH Body Temperature Regulation each of these more specific MeSH will be included in the search, you might like to search some of these terms in the titles and abstracts of PubMed citations.
It is probably worth looking in the Entry terms for each of these MeSH.

Using [mh] or [tiab] will also ensure that PubMed searches phrases so that heat loss[tiab] will (usually) find the exact phrase in the titles and abstracts of citations.
Searching heat loss without the [tiab] will result in a search for heat AND loss in the same citation.

Including non MeSH terms for the concept will help you to find citations to articles that don't have MeSH.

Join the terms from each column together using OR logic.
Enclose the terms from each column in round brackets.
Use AND logic to combine the searches from the different columns.
Enter the search in the PubMed query box

The logic grid above becomes the search

(pineal[tiab] OR pineal gland[mh] OR epiphysis cerebri[tiab] ) AND (thermoregulat*[tiab] OR body temperature regulation[mh] OR heat loss*[tiab] OR sweat*[tiab] OR thermogenes*[tiab] OR heat production[tiab] OR shiver*[tiab])

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