The brain controls and regulates all the necessary body functions. Why can’t we consiously perform these functions or use our brain to affect our body.

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The brain controls and regulates all the necessary body functions. Why can’t we consiously perform these functions or use our brain to affect our body.

In: Biology

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Some people can. It just takes practice. People have demonstrated the ability to raise their core temperatures, slow their heart rate, etc.

Anonymous 0 Comments

In part, because your consciousness is only in one part of your brain.

But your brain *does* affect your body. Think about something scary, your heart rate will rise. Think about someone you’re attracted to, you’ll feel the physical effects of arousal. Think about something that angers you, and you’ll tense up. And, of course, decide to move your arm and your arm will move.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Generally because there is no need for you to micromanage those things, or they’d sometimes even lose their purpose. If you could release dopamine at will you’d never leave your bedroom because you get all your motivating happiness fixes at home.

We only have direct access to the bodyfunctions that need to be able to control (like breathing for when we dive).

And every good programmer will tell you that he works similar. Giving the user the option to turn off essential functions WILL cause trouble by someone accidentally breaking everything.

Anonymous 0 Comments

For the same reason we find it hard to spin lots of plates on poles – we’re bad at multitasking.

When we’re out in the wild, we want all of our attention on the gazelle in front of us, not trying to stabilise our digestive system and balance thermal regulation manually.

The more automated systems, the better.

Anonymous 0 Comments

None of these answers are actually correct. I’m a 4th year med student. We have a sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system. Our parasympathetic nervous system is located near the brain and will control things like constricting pupils, saliva stimulation, slows your heart rate, constricts your airways, stimulates stomach activity, etc. The Sympathetic nervous system is located in your spinal cord and will dilate pupils, inhibit salivation, increase hr, etc., you get the point. People refer to the parasympathetic as the rest and digest system and refer to the sympathetic as the fight or flight system. To answer your question: we can consciously control some of these things because they’re very highly regulated by metabolic processes.