Medulla Oblongata - Functions

Functions

The medulla oblongata controls autonomic functions, and connects the higher levels of the brain to the spinal cord. It is also responsible for regulating several basic functions of the autonomic nervous system which include:

  • Respiration – chemoreceptors
  • Cardiac center – sympathetic, parasympathetic system
  • Vasomotor center – baroreceptors
  • Reflex centers of vomiting, coughing, sneezing, and swallowing

Read more about this topic:  Medulla Oblongata

Famous quotes containing the word functions:

    Nobody is so constituted as to be able to live everywhere and anywhere; and he who has great duties to perform, which lay claim to all his strength, has, in this respect, a very limited choice. The influence of climate upon the bodily functions ... extends so far, that a blunder in the choice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from his actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that he never even comes face to face with it.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    Mark the babe
    Not long accustomed to this breathing world;
    One that hath barely learned to shape a smile,
    Though yet irrational of soul, to grasp
    With tiny finger—to let fall a tear;
    And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves,
    To stretch his limbs, bemocking, as might seem,
    The outward functions of intelligent man.
    William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

    The mind is a finer body, and resumes its functions of feeding, digesting, absorbing, excluding, and generating, in a new and ethereal element. Here, in the brain, is all the process of alimentation repeated, in the acquiring, comparing, digesting, and assimilating of experience. Here again is the mystery of generation repeated.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)