• Question: Do any of you know how your brain controls your body?

    Asked by BluePanda92 to Dan, Jennifer, Luke, Martin, sakshisharda on 6 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Dan Gordon

      Dan Gordon answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      Wow, a really good question and quite complex. Imagine that the brain is a computer and like your computer or iPad it reacts to information that it is presented with. So if you want to move a message come from the brain through the nervous system and to the muscles that are needed. This signal triggers a series of electrical and then chemical responses in the muscle that causes it to change length. Information is then relayed back from the muscle to the brain explaining how much force was produced at what rate and what happened. the brain like a computer then analyses tis information and compares it to what should be happening and will make adjustments to the next signal that is sent for the next muscle contraction. This happens at incredibly fast speeds and across all regions of the body.

    • Photo: Jennifer Paxton

      Jennifer Paxton answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      Brilliant question and Dan has already given an excellent answer!
      It’s really good to think of the brain like a computer – it’s like the whole control centre of your body. You also have your spinal cord, which is a continuation of your brain and this goes down your back in your spine. This spinal cord sends out long ‘wires’ called nerves out to your muscles and the muscles will move when they get the single from the brain to do so. Signals will go the other way too, from the muscles back to the brain to give information about what your muscle is doing, any pain or temperature too, and the brain will decide if the muscle needs to move again. This all happens really really fast….over 100 metres per second!
      The brain also controls many other parts of your body too – your heart and lungs can be controlled by your brain (although your heart does have a clever little system of its own too!)
      Your brain also has a big role in producing special chemical messages called hormones out to other organs in the body and keep everything running smoothly!
      The brain is an incrediblly clever organ – one which we definitely could NOT live without!

    • Photo: Martin Lindley

      Martin Lindley answered on 14 Mar 2018:

      I agree 🙂

      if you want to see your brain activity then you can wear a portable EEG (very expensive) and it shows all the activity in your brain as lights flashing

      I have work one while I gave a talk and they projected the image of my brain onto the screen while I was talking….super cool

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