How come a paralyzingly spine break shuts down pain/muscle operation, but not organs and other bodily functions?

Question

In the case of a spinal break that causes someone to become paralyzed, why would organs and other bodily functions un-affected if the cause is a separation of the brain’s ability to communicate with the body? Does the brain not also subconsciously control breathing, heart beat, etc?

In: 159

Answer 1

Other answers have talked about the heart and lungs, so I won’t repeat that, but there are other bodily functions that don’t rely on nerves from the brain.

For example, many organs communicate via hormones (e.g. adrenaline, ghrelin, and a million others)

Another striking one is that the digestive system effectively has [its own brain](https://gut.bmj.com/content/47/suppl_4/iv15), which is pretty mind blowing!