I like to watch videos of people fighting from time to time and kept seeing videos of people getting put to sleep via jaw shot. How does this work? How does the brain immediately go unconscious like that? What causes the brain to shut off so quickly?
In: Biology
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Retrospective analysis of boxing knockouts has revealed that they typically are caused by a hook to the side of the jaw which causes a rotation of the head in the horizontal plane.
A shot to the jaw, then, might cause a tremendous amount of force and channel it directly to the nearby brainstem. When you’re hit in the jaw, it can create a lot of these rotational forces that can get transmitted to the parts of the brain.
The direct hit into the jaw itself doesn’t cause a knockout, it’s the concussion itself.
If you get hit really hard in the jaw, imagine a shockwave that gets sent throughout your body. The force of the shockwave is primarily through your skull which houses your brain. As a result of this shockwave, your head will rapidly swing back and cause your brain to slam into your skull which is what causes the knockout.
By your brain slamming into your skull, it essentially damages a part of your brain and causes you to go unconscious. You ever see in movies where a villain slams a bottle at a character’s head and they fall unconscious? Essentially the same thing.
Remember those old drug PSA’s where they take an egg and say “this is your brain” then fry the egg while saying “this is your brain on drugs?” Now put that egg in a jar and shake it. The brain does not like this.
It acts as a pivot point. Hit the jaw, swivel the top of the head, brain smacks the inside of the skull. Lights out.
Imagine a see-saw. Their brain is on one end, and the punch to the jaw is like a kid jumping on the raised side.
Brain gets launched. Brain doesn’t like getting launched.
They’ve done studies in monkeys. Don’t read on if you’re squeamish.
They worked out that you can clamp a skull in place and essentially hit it as hard as you want, and, unless there is a penetrating injury, they generally won’t lose conciousness.
When the head can move the forced required to cause KO is much lower, due to the skull impacting the inert brain.
This is what happens in most head injuries, and as others have said, the jaw provides a lever for the skull.
Have a medium sized dog laying under you. Reach down to give that good dog some scritches. Dog senses movement and raises head. Jaw of human has nerves. Skull of dog collide with slacked (open) jaw of human. *clacked* Nerves fire. Human see flash of light and feel confusion. Special spot under jaw has nerves that can feel like you’re chewing Snap Pops from Fourth of July.
When your head is hit from the side (jaw or temple) the two halves of your brain momentarily lose connection. It’s like unplugging your desktop computer. Yes, you can restart it. But the action of juggling your left and right side of your brain so they move in opposite directions “shorts out” your brain. You don’t have to hit someone hard to knock them out. You have to hit them right.
there’s two ways:
1- the bouncing force is so hard that it jars the head so quickly that the cranial fluid cannot cushion the blow. this causes the brain to bounce off the skull and result in brain damage
2- the concussive blow is so hard on the brain steam/nervous system that it literally ‘shocks’ it off temporarily
(rare 3) – you can hit the arteries on the side of the neck hard enough to temporarily cause enough blood cut off to ko some one (usually seen with wheel or heel kicks, or karate chop style strikes)
im a bit of an mma nerd. also i super generalized some stuff here for the eli5 factor.
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