Title says it. I have never questioned the idea of a “glass jaw” and have experienced it first hand. While it makes sense for a head injury to have side effects, what is it about the jaw that leads to K.O.’s?
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It’s the rapid rotation of the head that causes the brain to distort instead the skull. The brain is soft and when the head stops suddenly like in a car crash, or takes a punch that makes the head move suddenly, the brain can be injured.
Essentially getting in anywhere in the jaw is very effective because it causes the head to spin, this sudden movement of the head causes the brain to crash into skull after your head stops moving. This trauma causes too many neurons to fire overloading the brain causing temporary paralysis.
It depends on the direction of the punch. The quick and dirty explanation. The first thing is in layman’s terms. Some people are more susceptible to concussions depending on how “tightly” the brain is packed in the skull. I’m sure someone can explain that part better, but the less it can move around, the harder a hit you can take. Hence the glass jaw.
There are two types of concussions.
One is when you are hit head on. When the head snaps back, it takes time for the brain itself to catch up to the movement. Think of being in a car accident. The car stops but you keep moving until you hit something. The brain compresses inside of the skull leaving an empty space on the other side and then snaps back.
The second is a radial concussion. This happens when the hit makes your head spin. Again, the skull moves and it takes time for the brain to catch up.
The jaw itself is far from the spine, the anchor point, so when it is hit, the force is amplified more than it would be if you are hit closer to that anchor/pivot point.
It is a lever mechanism.
What makes the KO is when he brain got shaken. The entire skull is like a see saw with the neck as the pivot. When you move one end of the seesaw, you move the other end as well. So when you want to shake the “end” with the brain, there are two ways to do it. 1st is by hitting that part directly, 2nd is by hitting the OPPOSITE part (hence the chin).
Take your finger and poke right where your jaw meets the bottom of your ear. Hurts right? There is a nerve cluster there. If you get socked in the chin your jaw bone slams into that nerve cluster. If it gets hit hard enough it can make you black out. Like hitting the funny bone but for your skull.
Theres a few different mechanisms behind it. A strike to the head leaves the brain bouncing around inside and enough of that will cause a reaction similar to an emergency reboot on a computer.
Also along your neck there are bundles of nerves that travel behind the jaw. A quick pinch of the nervebundle will overload the brain and again. Restart
You can be knocked out by any violent abrupt strike to the head. Also your diaphragm, chest, and gut can ge hot hard enough to knock you out also
it forces the head ot spin, and such sudden monvements cause the brain to ” rattle” inside the skull(because physics dictates it so thru the 1st law of motion).
the brain itself is incased in a fluid ” sac” but a movement that is rapid enough can have the brain hit the inside of the skull and when that happens you immediately go lights out.
depending on the severity of the impact you may end up with a concussion as a result.
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