How does the body pass gas’s when sleeping but contain motor control to the muscles regulating bowel movements at the same time? In other words, how can we continue sleeping and pass gas, but not shart the bed?
Secondly, what mechanism makes us wake up to go the the bathroom if it’s serious enough to actually have a bowel movement (like if we were suffering from diarrhea and sick?). Same applies to urinating? How does the body know to hold it in, but when serious enough, wake us up?
In: 277
It’s the rectoanal inhibitory reflex, aka. rectal vault sampling. It’s an unconscious mechanism, your unconscious brain knows the difference between gas and those three processed stuffed bell peppers you had for lunch.
[RAIR source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectoanal_inhibitory_reflex?wprov=sfla1)
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