The dynamics of a physiological control systems described by a first-order nonlinear delay differential equations are investigated. we proved that a sequence of Hopf bifurcations occur at the positive equilibrium as the delay increases. Explicit algorithm for determining the direction of the Hopf bifurcations and the stability of the bifurcating periodic solutions are derived, using the theory of normal form and center manifold. Global existence of periodic solutions are established using a global Hopf bifurcation result due to Wu [Symmetric functional differential equations and neural networks with memory, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 350 (1998) 4799–4838].