ANSWERS: 3
  • Wow, for good stuff check here: http://tbilawgroup.com/braininjuries.html#braininjury In a nutshell (pun?), your brain does important stuff, and is, arguably, YOU. If your brain is sloshed really hard, bad things happen, as described in the link above. If I were held to a firm answer, I'd say loss of blood pressure would be the direct cause, but I'm guessing. Interestingly, there was a woman who was on trial for murder (her own children?) and she claimed an intruder hit her on the head. A neurological expert testified that the stuff she said she remembered leading up to the blow that knocked her out was bs, because people who get knocked out don't remember the 10 or so seconds before! So she was convicted (other stuff aided the prosecution, too).
  • The answer I got from my school days is that your brain is something like one of those old telephone switchboards. The one where a human operator. Connections are made when you wish to do something. A severe blow to the head is like yanking out all the telephone connections and knocking down the operator. It take time to reconnect everything and until then, you could be out like a light or disoriented or have no recent memories.
  • Overflow. Whenever we are hurt, be it at the head or whatever other part, and whatever magnitude of the impact, our brain will just (as it always does with everything) process the event it is witnessing and act accordingly. All traumas cause many reactions from the brain, biologically and (for the sake of avoiding the soul/not soul dilemma) not biologically (mind related) For example, let's say someone pinches you with a nail in the hand, immediately, your brain will process something like this: 1) A reflex on the limb, to avoid getting hurt if you had chance to see that you were about to get pinched. Most probably, taking your hand apart very quick, or push the agressor, etc. 2) A database search, looking for previous experiences in the hope of finding the shortest path to the most apropiate course of action 3) If found, it would branch into recalling the moment and executing it 4) Fear (even if a very little pity one), biologically unavoidable 5) A reasoning on the most plausible reason why this is happening .....to name a few. Now, if we were hit in the head, your brain only has less than 100 miliseconds to do this: 1) Increase blood flow in preparation for a forecasted heavy duty 2) Dispatch a strong chemical message through substantia nigra and cerebelum to unleash due reflexes 3) Motor nervous system contracts limbs as it sees fit to avoid incoming damage 4) The brain reasons there's an inminent threat and while the intelligence hasn't stated if it is eventual (i.e., an accident, like hitting yourself with a low doorframe) or sequential (i.e., there's more to come, like in a fist fight) it prepares the same no matter what it turns out, so: 5) Dispatches chemical messages for immediate release of adrenaline to provide articulatory system with extra resources to defend yourself and work faster/harder at the expense of pushing all systems near their limits 6) Dispatches chemical messages for releasing of substances that provoke fear, so it can become more sharp and aware. The senses like sight, hearing, etc. become more acute and response faster. (i.e., should a second blow be received, this time you'll have more probabilities to evade or raise your hands to protect yourself, rather than being taken by surprise) 7) Sensory neurons nearby engage their self-defense routine (pain) and communicate it through the stem nerves in the area whether they were physically affected or not (better be sure than sorry, that's why pain is wider than the actual area of damage) 8) Warns the rest of the cells that belong to other systems to engage emergency procedures (i.e., the heart and arteries will start pumping much more blood through the damage area to tighten it, absorb further impact and receive an extra dose of oxygen, carbohydrates, and immunological agents in case any colateral cells were damaged and are in distress, a.k.a. swelling), the lungs inhale more air by volume (not speed, yet) to provide the heart with enough fuel for the process. 9) Yourself (mind) figures out that you are being hit. 10) Consequently, tries to think why But then, all of a sudden......the lights go off. Mind (reasoning, intelligence, soul, whatever) is actually a complex interaction of all the systems in the brain between each other. Memory, aesthetics, senses, all glandulae take their part in our "thinking". So, the brain was very busy already, and all its subsystems will serve the ulterior good, which in this case was to cease the complex and, at the moment, arguably unnecessary process of coming up with a good reason of what is going on. "Mind" shuts down. This does not mean that the brain powers itself off. The only time it will ever cease any activity of any kind will be when it dies. What stops is the intrincate relationship between the subsystems, which is what we call "consciousness" because continuing with it would have demanded way too much from the brain itself, and then more serious damage could occur. While it is a very resilient marvel, it does have a limit. If it could handle indefinite amounts of load and withstand ever increasing amounts of bandwidth and energy drain, we would never need to sleep, or rest, loiter around or go out for leisure. Some common myths are: 1) Blood pressure related False: Any blood issue in the brain turns out deadly at best, and disabling, at worse. Even the tiniest of clogs will upset it. People with a high blood pressure suffer severe headaches, and people with low blood pressure do faint. These are protection mechanisms (work harder when in excess of blood to avoid a bottleneck or clogging, and work slower to avoid starvation) 2) Your ideas or whatever get shaken False: There is liquid in the brain (cranial-spinal suspension) but its main job is to provide floating support and make it weight from near 1kg. to less than 100gr. The other liquids (grey/white matter) are glial cells designed to structurally support the other neurons, and lastly, the workings of neurons do not depend on their position to each other (they are independent) which is what makes them so efficient and of a great interest to software developers

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