How boxers are able to remain standing yet are unable to defend themselves during a boxing match until the ref calls off the fight.

Question

How are some boxers able to just stand there and take the beating without falling or being knocked unconscious yet don’t have the insight to defend themselves? Do their minds go blank?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Your brain has layers. Deeper into your brain you find much older structures which deal with fundamental matters like breathing and standing up. Higher up in your brain are more modern structures which deal with more proactive and abstract thought processes. When your brain is stressed it shuts down or reduces thinking in those outermost lobes and retreats into its reptile hindbrain.

Or to put it more simply the part of your brain that controls coming up with and implementing a defence strategy shuts down long before the part that’s just “remember to stand”