How does the brain work the body

Question: How does the brain work the body
- Keywords:
  brain,
  human body
Asked by anon-269505 on 10 Nov 2020.
- Kirsty Lindsay answered on 10 Nov 2020:
  
  There there are special cells in the body which can carry electrical signals called nerves: they are very long, some as long as your arms and lengs! Nerves carry information along your spinal cord up to the brain. The brain process the signals like a computer; it plans what to do with the information (do you needs to move a hand? have a faster heartbeat? listen to something?) and then sends a signal back along another set of nerves to make the action happen at the other end, the signal might tell a muscle to contract or your heart to beat faster for example. The signals going up to your brain are called the ascending pathways, and the ones coming down from the brain are called the descending pathways.
  
  If your body needs to do something very fast, like move your hand of something hot, or if it is doing something it knows well which has a repeating pattern, like walking, there are special signal pathways that only go to the spine and out the other side. This makes the pathway the signal has to travel much shorter, so you can react really fast. We call very fast reactions without the brain thinking about it your reflexes. Movements which have a repeated pattern you don’t need to think about are called Central Pattern Generators.
- Joanna Giles answered on 11 Nov 2020:
  
  The brain is the most complicated organ in the body. I don’t study the brain, so I like to think of it as a computer. It receives signals from around the body (from “receptors” that are all over your body) then these signals are sent along neurons to the brain. The brain then processes these signals and sends back a signal to trigger the correct response. It might be a movement by a contracting your muscles, or it might be a signal to send out hormones. It’s a fascinating organ!
- Ben Lewis answered on 11 Nov 2020:
  
  Hi Jaden! The most exciting thing is that we still have a lot to learn about how the brain really works – lots of scientists are doing work on this right now. As others have said, the brain sends electrical signals to other parts of your body along wires called nerves. That signal can then make another part of your body do something. Something which has helped us learn more about the brain recently is being able to take pictures of it working using something called an MRI scan. These have let us see different parts of the brain light up with activity in different situations. Doing this is helping researchers piece together how the brain reacts to different scenarios.
- Madhumeeta Chadha answered on 11 Nov 2020:
  
  Hi Jaden! The brain definitely is a very complex and fascinating organ. The brain itself is divided into different areas which are responsible for certain functions of the body. Voluntary actions such as running or talking is under the control of an area known as cerebrum. Breathing, beating of the heart that happen regularly, without us thinking about it, is under the control of medulla/ brain stem. Our balance and co-ordination is controlled by another area of the brain, the cerebellum. Adding on to what others have said the nerves help transmit the signals sent from the brain to various parts of the body such as muscles or spinal cord to carry out functions. Nerves are similar to electrical wires at home or in an appliance and play a very important role. In fact, in a few diseases like Multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s the nerves get damaged. This causes difficulty in walking and/ loss of memory.

Question: How does the brain work the body

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