Does the brain control the heart or does the heart control the brain?

Question

When someone is braindead and there is no electrical signal to send to the heart, should'nt they just die?

Answer 1

The brain stem regulates breathing and the beating of your heart. The heart provides oxygenated blood to parts of the body, including the brain so that the cells receive the nutrients they need. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

The heart is controlled by the brain to some extent. And the brain is dependent on the heart to provide its blood flow and oxygen. So the heart is wired a little differntly, so it can operate when the brain is busy doing other things, or in emergencies when the brain is not sending out the proper signals. There is a mechanism in the heart that operates as a pacemaker, causing cardiac muscles cells to contract at a certain rate and in a certain order to provide for efficiency and safety.

Answer 3

Yes, other answers above are correct. The brain stem is what controls breathing and it circulates the blood.
http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/body/brain_SW.htmlBrain Stem Keeps You Breathing - and More
Another brain part that's small but mighty is the brain stem. The brain stem sits beneath the cerebrum and in front of the cerebellum. It connects the rest of the brain to the spinal cord, which runs down your neck and back. The brain stem is in charge of all the functions your body needs to stay alive, like breathing air, digesting food, and circulating blood.

Part of the brain stem's job is to control your involuntary muscles - the ones that work automatically, without you even thinking about it. There are involuntary muscles in the heart and stomach, and it's the brain stem that tells your heart to pump more blood when you're biking or your stomach to start digesting your lunch. The brain stem also sorts through the millions of messages that the brain and the rest of the body send back and forth. Whew! It's a big job being the brain's secretary!
When someone is brain dead, it is usually because of some brain trauma of some kind. Most people are put on some sort of mechanical means of support to keep their bodies alive. Some people want to donate their organs if they are ever pronounced brain dead and they have to have 2 doctors declare that they are brain dead. Here is more on Understanding Death Before Donation
To understand organ donation and the shortage of organs for transplants, one needs to have a basic understanding of how people die and what impact it has on whether they can, in fact, be donors or not. Of the 2.2 million people who die in America each year, relatively few die under circumstances that make them medically eligible to be either organ donors or tissue donors.
http://www.organtransplants.org/understanding/death/
Brain Dead is Dead. There is No “Recovery”
Brain death can be confusing, particularly for families who are confronted with the sudden death of someone they love because a brain dead person on a ventilator can feel warm to the touch and can look "alive." The heart is still beating and the ventilator is pushing oxygen and air into the lungs making the person's chest rise and fall.

When this happens, some families expect that the person they love can simply be kept on the ventilator in hopes that their condition will improve. But to be brain dead is to be dead, and no improvement or recovery is possible. Defibrillators used to "shock" a heart may get it functioning again within the first several minutes after it stops. But there is no such method to jump-start or revive a brain that has been deprived of blood and whose cells have died.

How does brain death occur?
When the brain is injured, it responds in much the same way as an injury like a twisted ankle - it swells. Unlike the muscles and tissue of the ankle, however, the brain is in a confined space – the skull – and has no room to swell.

A head trauma, bleeding in the brain from a stroke or aneurysm, or prolonged cardiac arrest that deprives the brain of oxygen will cause the brain tissue to swell. The action of the brain swelling inside a closed space and the build-up of pressure is what can ultimately lead to brain death. As the brain swells inside the skull, it pushes downward toward the brain stem blocking all upward flow of blood. Depending on the type of injury, this may happen within minutes or over a period of days. Even while the heart is still beating and supplying blood to the rest of the body, blood that carries oxygen cannot reach the brain or the brain stem, which controls heart rate and breathing. The result is that the brain and the person dies.

Documenting Brain Death
Declaring someone brain dead involves no subjective or arbitrary judgments. Brain death is a clinical, measurable condition whose formal definition emerged after the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Issues in Medicine embraced brain death in 1981, when Ronald Reagan was president.

The electroencephalogram (EEG) of someone who is brain dead shows no electrical activity, and an injection of mild radioactive isotopes into the brain reveals the absolute absence of blood flow. People who are brain dead also have no gag response. Their pupils do not respond to light and they do not blink when a swab is run across their eyeballs. They do not respond to pain, and in the absence of signals from the brain, their lungs have stopped working—only the ventilator keeps them "breathing."

To avoid even the smallest chance of mistake, most hospitals require that two physicians – sometimes hours apart – each conduct a range of tests in search of even the slightest indication of brain activity.

None of these physicians can have anything to do with organ donation and transplantation; they probably do not even know whether the patient is a would-be donor or how the family feels about donation. Physicians, however, often let family members watch as they perform some of these tests because the tests visually demonstrate that, appearances notwithstanding, the person they love is indeed dead.
There is more on the website. It is a difficut thing to face and to decide. It is one that I made. I am a donor.

Answer 4

No, because the heart isn't controlled by the brain (it's not the other way around either). There is a little thing called the sinus knot in your heart which sends the electrical signals to the heart muscle to make it beat.

Answer 5

they are two diffrent systems. if the heart stops beating there is still brain activity, but because human organs need oxygen to continue and the lungs are part of the respiratory system the body dies, then the brain continues to have activity for a certain amout of time. That is way some people get brain damage after they are victims of a drowning. Yodamean?

Answer 6

Normally they would but the heart can be kept beating by artificial means. Your brain controls EVERYTHING in your body. They would keep a brain-dead person alive artificially usually in the case of a pregnant woman. They want the baby delivered as close to full term as possible.

Answer 7

Heart rate is controlled very precisely by two mechanisms:

The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which have nerve endings in the heart

Hormones, such as epinephrine and norepinephrine (catecholamines), which circulate in the bloodstream


In simple terms the heart does not control the brain and the brain does not control the heart,

Answer 8

There are different layers of the brain that do different things. The most primitive part of the brain is at the core, this controls life support and basic survival instincts. The outer layers help humans think like humans, the outer brain layers of birds and lizards help them think uniquely like birds and lizards. When someone is "brain dead" they lose that humanity and just become a living creature devoid of human thinking. They don't really become dead until that central core of the brain is dead. Brain-dead is a term we use for someone who doesn't respond yet lives on, requiring external care.

Answer 9

Brain's in charge. Brain dead may be a term that doesn't mean exactly what you think it means.

Answer 10

medically speaking, the brain controls the heart
humanly speaking, the heart controls the brain