Question: How does our brains contact our body to function?

Emma Ross answered on 19 Jun 2013:

The brain functions by sending electrical signals from one brain cell to another. These cells are called neurons and they look a bit like tadpoles! They send an electrical signal down their ‘tail’ and when it gets to the end, the signal has to jump across to the ‘head’ of another neuron, this connection is called a synapse. There are chemicals in our brain which allow the signal to jump from neuron to neuron. Some of these chemicals help the signal flow around the brain really well, and these are released when you are excited or anxious. Some chemicals don’t allow the signals to flow that well and these can be released when you feel tired. There are over one hundred billion neurons in our brain! They are arranged into distinct regions, so that neurons and their chemicals in one part of the brain will process information about movement, and another part will process information to do with speaking, or emotions etc. These different parts of the brain are very well connected, because to do most things we need to use more than one area of our brain- like crossing the road- this requires you to process information about what you see, hear, and then must coordinate movement so that you can walk across when the time is right. The brain is connected to the rest of the body by nerves, which are made up of these tadpole like neurons. Just like signals are transmitted through the brain, they are also transmitted from the brain to other places in the body, like muscles to make them move, by sending an electrcal signal thorugh the nerve. The signal is sent out of the brain, through the spinal cord, and then, depending on which part of the body you want to move, the signal will travel along a nerve that is connected to muscles in that area. When that signal arrives at the muscle, it uses a chemical again to help it ‘jump’ over the gap between the end of the nerve and the musle fibres, and then a series of chemical reactions happens in the muscles which means that the mucle fibres shorten, or contract, and this is what causes movement.