I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of $1000 to communicate their work.
Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.
This zone is the Organs Zone. It has scientists studying health and disease in various parts of our bodies. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!
Hi marcel,
Thanks for the excellent question!
The mini brain or enteric nervous system (ENS) must be intelligent for it’s specialised functions. It has to coordinate the complex behaviour of digestion, absorption, secretion and motility/movement.
To do this, your digestive system has special sensory cells (intrinsic sensory neurons) which ‘taste’ stimuli from the environment. These cells send the message along to interneurons which process the information and decide on a response.The processed signal is sent to motorneurons which bring about an action – intestinal smooth muscle contracting/relaxing, glands secreting acids/enzymes/neurotransmitters to help the digestive process.
All the organs of your digestive system need to know when to release enzymes to break down food into smaller molecules, when to mix, when to absorb the material, or push it along to the next segment. And they are in constant communication with the brain and often with each other to achieve this complex behaviour.
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