Nerves are Messengers

How does the brain control the work and reactions of muscles and organs? Our brain is an amazingly complex, super-super ‘computer’ that looks like a 3 pound spongy walnut. It sends its commands via a massive network of nerves, reaching every part of our body. The sole of our foot is very sensitive but is equipped to develop a calloused surface if we go barefoot a lot.

The eye is the most sensitive part of our body, about 3000 times as sensitive as the foot. The tiniest speck will cause serious irritations. It will never develop a calloused surface to protect itself – for good reasons. Some organs do not depend on volitional messages but operate automatically like the heart and lungs. Again for very good reasons. Most movements of our limbs require conscious decisions – very appropriate. Some messages need instant attention, in milliseconds. That is also built in as shown in the statement below.

Of the many nerves in the human body, only the twelve cranial nerves by pass the spinal cord with a hotline to the brain.

Flick a finger at my eye and I blink. Chew gum while talking and your tongue darts perilously in and out of chomping molars to steer the gum,… all the while snaking from teeth to roof of mouth to lips to teeth again, forming syllables of sound. These speedy movements, guided by sensory input, are made possible by the cranial nerves’ short, direct path to the brain.”
“Four of these cranial nerves deal with vision. The ones controlling eye movement are especially unique. Three of these nerves control eyeball movements (the largest, the optical nerve, carries digitized images from the retina to the brain).

Did you notice – digitized before we had computers?

Coordinating six tiny muscles, they furnish an advanced tracking system that allows us to lock in, say, on a goldfinch and follow its erratic, dipping flight across the horizon. The same nerves govern the miniscule jerks and glides required by the act of reading… They get the greatest workout of any, moving about 100,000 times each day (equivalent to leg muscles walking 80 kilometers).”

“The Gift of Pain” by Phillip Yancy and Dr. Paul Brand – p.43 – 45

So how does the brain control all this and more? It uses a vast, complex array of nerves to transmit orders to the muscles and organs.
It is no stretch to recognize that we are indeed wonderfully made,

Henry Wiebe