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?
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Level of injury has a lot to do with it, as does how complete the injury is and the extent of the scarring/tethering that occurred post-injury and whether/where syrinxes and pseudomeningoceles formed.
I have a spinal cord injury. The injury that causes paralysis is at one level but there’s damage above and below that point. All injuries are highly individual in terms of experience and outcomes – it’s part of why doctors can’t and won’t predict.
It affects bowel and bladder function, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, sweating, thermoregulation – all kinds of stuff.
Neurosurgeon here
Your nervous system has several divisions. The first is having an autonomous (non-conscious) and a voluntary system. The autonomous system controls your organs, breathing, your bowels moving and a long etc. Your voluntary system controls, well, your voluntary movements.
The autonomous system is subdivided into a fight-or-flight portion (called sympathetic) and a “Im chilling and digesting” portion (called parasympathetic).
Your autonomous nervous system is mostly controlled in your brainstem, right before the brain becomes the spinal cord. Brainstem then sends signals to the organs via the autonomous nervous system. Your organs are mostly controlled by a nerve that comes off the brainstem called the vagus (named vagus because it “meanders” through the entire body).
The flip side is your “voluntary” movements have a control center in your brain but an effector center in the spinal cord. Meaning, the “order” to move your hand/foot/arm/whatever comes from the brain, through the spinal cord to the neurons in your cord that then “execute” the command and tells the muscles to contract.
Meaning, if your spinal cord is cut, the order from the brain to move your foot will never reach the executing neuron and the muscle will not receive the command to move, BUT since the nerve that “controls” your inner organs left the brain “miles” before the spinal cord, there is no problem there.
It can happen. Had a cousin that jumped trying to kill himself and now had no control of his bladder or legs afterwards. He’s in therapy to bring back those connections. I imagine there was also some other organs affected but im not that close to him.
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