system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 Why does a broken neck which causes full body paralysis not cause the heart to stop beating, or the diaphragm to stop pulling air into the lungs?
gpt
Paralysis of the voluntary muscles below the neck due to this type of trauma would be a result of a severed spinal cord. The heart is innervated by the vagus nerve (cranial nerve X) and the diaphragm is innervated by the phrenic nerve. These split off from the brain higher than the spinal cord damage here and run down the sides of the neck to keep those two muscles going.