What's more important?

Question

The heart or the brain, really, think about this.
The heart pumps blood thru-out the body, while the brain is the central control of all nervous system.

Answer 1

And the brain controls the heart. However with advances in artificial hearts I'd say the brain is more important.

Answer 2

Actually the heart is probably more important if you don't think about artificial ways to keep people alive.

The chicken without a head story is a good one. However, I've also read papers which describe the decapitation of a cat which leaves only the medulla oblongata (the brain stem) intact. The cat becomes sedentary and does not sense its external environment. No surprise there. However, the heart and lungs/diaphragm continue to work for several days/weeks after the decapitation provided the cat is 'fed' with nutrients.

This is because the vital functions are not controlled by the cortex areas of the brain. This is why people don't die when the have lobotomies.

Remove someone's heart and they will die very quickly. However, it is possible that the heart will outlive them.

Contrary to most people's belief the brain is not entirely necessary for the heart to beat. The heart is made of several tissue types, one of which - nodal tissue - generates spontaneous action potentials. A heart can be removed from an organism and remain 'alive' for several hours if adequately perfused.

An experiment commonly performed at universities to illustrate drugs which act on the heart - The Langendorff Heart Preparation - involves isolating the heart from a guinea pig and attaching it to a scaffold incorporating a perfusion system and an isometric transducer. The transducer records the individual contractions of the myocardium.

These hearts are very small and normally 'die' (or are 'killed' by students) within 2-3 hours though some can beat autonomously for much longer. It is possible, and I know because I've done it, to stop the heart beating with Ouabain and then revive the heart counterintuitively with ACh combined with gentle massage and a puff of exhaled air (the oxygen dissolves in the perfusate).

Answer 3

The two are interdependent; the brain needs the heart to pump blood containing oxygen, glucose and heat (etc) to it, and the heart and the rest of the body need the brain as the central 'command station'. I'm not sure it's possible to think of one without the other in the live body.

Answer 4

I would say the brain as its in charge of everything and controls everything. Machines can continue to pump the blood through the body can't they..........at least until doctors decide whether the brain has "died" ...if it has,..then they will switch the machine off.

Answer 5

without a heart, blood wouldn't be pumped, therefore the brain wouldn't function, but without the brain functioning to control the CNS and PNS nothing at all in your body would function, i would say the brain is more important

Answer 6

Purely to play devils advocate, I am going to say the heart :)

There was a chicken that after having its head cut off continued to live FOR SEVERAL YEARS

The farmer spoonfed corn and water into the neck-hole. Think I am talking out my hoop? check the links or google for more :)

So, it DID live witout a brain for a few years, it could have managed without a heart (unless manually replaced with machine) for only a few seconds.

http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org

Answer 7

To me, my brain is more important, since this is where I reside. without my brain I as a person would no longer exisit and so the question becomes moot. Unitl it is possible to provide another substrate for the continued substrate for my thoughts I will choose brain every time.

Brain dead patients continue with perfectly functional hearts for years, yet they are no longer the person that was known by family and firends

Answer 8

its gotta be the brain, because without it, the individual components and mechanisms of the heart would not know how to function, thus the heart could not pump the blood.
good question, though

Answer 9

ya need a brain to live but you can live without a heart for 5 seconds so i'd say the brain

Answer 10

Both r equaly important thats y called "vital organs".if heart stop pumping blood to brain , brain will die within seconds....but when brain die its mean u ,ll die n ultimatly ur heart will die..u can tseperate the both in importance.