How do people paralysed from the neck down still retain the ability to breathe, pump blood, metabolise food etc., even though their muscles are paralysed?
In: Biology
Only some control of that stuff goes through the spine, you also have the vagus nerve that controls a lot of it. Then the heart and digestion can function with no connections to anything at a basic level.
breathing is the hardest, and paralyzed people can require breathing assistance. But it takes a pretty bad injury and is the type you are mostly likely to die from immediately, it absolutely happens but there is some amount of selection bias where the people that make it to live as a paralyzed person got injuries that are somewhat survivable.
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