Many actions are controlled by autonomic nerves, except some, like breathing, can be interfered by the conscious, while others, like the beating of the heart, cannot. In fact, for breathing, the conscious decision can override the autonomic nerves such as holding your breath until a certain point. It’s like an admin user vs a guest user. But how does such privilege system work in terms of neurons? How does the control alternate between the conscious and the autonomic system?
“You are now manually beating your heart”. Nope, that doesn’t work no matter how hard you try it (except for Buddha monks I suppose), so does this mean there are no physical neuron connections between the conscious and the heart?
In: 161
Your heart makes its own electricity. It basically performs by itself. Not indefinitely, but this is why a heart can continue to beat even when it’s outside of a person’s body, and why you can electrically shock someone’s heart when they’re under cardiac arrest to restart it without needing brain surgery.
There’s some communication between the heart and brain, but not nearly as much as the brain and lungs. Your lungs can’t breathe on their own, they are entirely dependent on your brain, and your brain is you. It’s kind of like the lungs are your newborn child that you must do everything for while your heart is your preteen child–you can tell it what to do and you can help it along and it can’t *really* live on its own, but for the most part it is its own entity and there’s only so much control you have over it.
Latest Answers