• Question: What makes the brain control the body

    Asked by anon-269480 on 10 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Ivan Andrew

      Ivan Andrew answered on 10 Nov 2020:

      Hi Jaden,
      Your brain is made of approximately 100 billion nerve cells, called neurons. Neurons have the amazing ability to gather and transmit electrochemical signals – think of them like the connections and wires in a computer.
      Neurons share the same characteristics and have the same makeup as other cells, but the electrochemical aspect lets them transmit signals over long distances (up to several feet or a few meters) and send messages to each other.

    • Photo: Romain Laine

      Romain Laine answered on 10 Nov 2020:

      The brain is the mastermind behind everything that’s going on within you, whether you’re conscious of it or not. It’s made up of neurons that reach out to nearly every single muscle in your body for instance and coordinate them, whether that’s to do something like kicking a football or digesting the food you’ve just eaten (there’s plenty of muscles in your guts). As Jaden said, one good way to think of it is like a computer and wires sending signals.
      A lot of those “wires” (neurons) go along your spine to reach all the different parts of your body to tell them what to do. But another important component is that the body and, more specifically, your senses (touch, hearing etc.) sends lots of signals back to the brain to help it take decisions on what to do.

      It’s a fascinating field of research that is also asking more difficult questions like: “What makes you conscious?”, “Where are your memories?”

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