How Does The Brain Talk To The Pancreas?
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at
7:54 pm
There must be some communication between the two. The brain is responsible for keeping balance or homeostatic level within the body. How does it send messages to the pancreas and what does it send in order to tell it to either release insulin or glucagon.
basically what is it sending to the pancreas and where in the brain is it coming from.
Thanks this question is haunting me.
Tagged with: Brain • Does • Pancreas • Talk
Filed under: Diabetes Questions and Answers
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The brain is the operating system / CPU and receives the signals / request from the various organs and analyse them and then later command the corresponding organs to act accordingly. For example when lot of food is available in the stomach then the brain receives the request from the stomach for the requirement of digestive juices and commands the organs like bile duct and acid producing glands to release the same to the stomach. Similarly when the digested food is getting ingested it recevies the signal from the stomach that excess food is available and hence sends command to the pancreas to release insulin for converting the same. These things can only be explained theoritically and scientists are just trying to find out exactly how these signals are sent and there is still a long way to go.
Once again, there isn’t. The pancreas is capable of monitoring glucose levels and secreting insulin and glucagon as appropriate. The brain is not involved in normal homeostasis of glucose through the pancreas
Excellent question. The best I can come up with is some sort of ‘cell phone’! nyuk.
AIM
The two utilize string dynamics. That is two tin cans with a tight string between them.
impluses travel along the nerves starting from the brain and going down the spinal column… small electrical signals they are… its like morse code… if it says dit dit dit the pancreas realeases insulin and if it says dit dit dah it releases glucagon and if it says dah dit dah it releases a little bit of both… and the combination between defines the amount of each..ok? more dahs gets more glucagon and more dits insulin…
BluTooth link-up.
ok when you experience hunger, your brain senses this and expresses things called neuropeptides (proteins within the brain) that “tell” via the parasympathetic nervous system the pancreas to release glucagon, as glucose is about to come from you eating. then when you are eating, your body has to take the glucose that is currently in your bloodstream and store it right? insulin is responsible for getting this to occur. then your brain tells the hormone insulin to be released from the beta cells of the pancreas (these cells have receptors that release the hormone insulin) and then insulin helps to store glucose by sequestering glucose in the blood into the muscle cells or liver and turning it into a molecule that is similar but called glyercol which is what glucose is stored as until you need to use it again as energy.