the.com/pons
The brainstem's switchboard operator, quietly running your breathing while you take all the credit.
means The pons is the bulging middle section of the brainstem that relays signals between the brain, cerebellum, and spinal cord, and helps regulate breathing, sleep, and facial sensation.
from From Latin pons, meaning 'bridge.' Anatomists in the 1500s and 1600s, mapping the brainstem, saw this thick band of nerve fibers arching between the cerebellum's two hemispheres and literally connecting upper and lower brain structures — so they named it exactly what it looked like: a bridge.
- name origin
- latin for bridge, connecting brainstem parts
- controls
- breathing rhythm, sleep cycles, facial sensation
- damage risk
- locked-in syndrome if severely injured
- neighbors
- sits between midbrain and medulla oblongata