Can We Do Anything Without Our Brains?

You need your brain to understand what I’m saying, and you would need your brain to decide whether or not you like my post. You would also need your brain to decide if you want to scroll down the page using your fingers to read more. In fact, you need your brain to do a lot of stuff, and without a brain, well, you unfortunately can’t do much of anything at all. Or can you?

Many people say that it's better to listen to your heart rather than your head. So does that mean that our brains are not as vital to our actions as we think they are? Our brains are located in our heads, and most people would believe that they are responsible for everything we perform in our daily lives. But what if we didn’t have heads or brains? What if we were like Miracle Mike, otherwise known as Mike the Headless Chicken.

In 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen went out to grab a chicken for supper. He cut the chicken’s head off and it didn’t die. Mike, the Headless Chicken, lived for another 18 months! During that time he walked the country and surprised onlookers.

Surprisingly, Mike was able to sit and walk and was fed by putting little drops of water or pieces of grain down his throat. So how did Mike the Chicken manage to perform all these tasks without a head/brain? Even though the Chicken did not have much of what we would call a “head”, he did have a bit of his brain stem. To understand this, let’s look at an even more simple creature, the cockroach.

Cockroaches don’t even breathe through their heads, so without one they’re fine. Instead, these creatures breathe through holes all over their bodies. This means that instead of being controlled by a brain, they have small bundles of nerves throughout their bodies—called ganglia— that they can breathe through.

So even without any head parts, or brain, cockroaches can live for weeks. They can walk around and respond to movement. The only problem that a cockroach can face in this case is that it will eventually starve to death. However, us humans are not nearly as fortunate. Without a head, and a brain, we would die in seconds, if not instantly. Does that make cockroaches more lucky than humans? With our heads intact, however, us humans are still capable of performing some actions that don’t necessarily require a brain, such as reflexes. For example, when you you sneeze, you can expel air at nearly 35-40 mph. Nerve impulses that deliver signals to your brain, on the other hand, reach up to an astounding 250 mph. But sometimes that is not quite fast enough. For example, if you accidentally or intentionally put your hand on a hot stove, cells on your skin will die very rapidly, in a manner that’s faster than 250mph.

As a result, 250 mph won’t be sufficient to carry the signals from your skin cells and deliver them to your brain in order for you to use your it to lift your hands off the super hot stove. In other words, it’s not worth it to tell your brain that this is happening right away, your body needs to take action fast, and no matter how brainy you are, you will always pull your hand away from a flame without/or before thinking about it. Your immediate reaction to pull your hand away is controlled by other parts of your nervous system. The same can be said about involuntary and unconscious processes.

These facts might not be satisfying to many people, as many think that these actions require that your brain be there to keep you alive and breathing. So what if you weren’t alive? In your dead, brainless body, something that does actually continue to grow is your skin. In this case, skin does not need the body or the brain in order to survive, as it can actually take in some oxygen through osmosis. As a result, our skin can remain 'alive' for days, even after we die. On a similar note, your digestion also continues after you die. With a dead body and no brain, the bacteria in your stomach will keep the digestion process going, or at least part of it. So in a way, digesting your food, does not require a brain. As you can see then, the death of your brain does not always necessarily result in the complete cessation of bodily functions. Your body has many different systems that are effectively able to continue in your absence.