system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What happens to your body when you are knocked out with a punch?
gpt
Doctor here.

When trauma to the brain occurs, several things can happen.

The direct injury to the brain is called a *coup* injury. This is damage to the brain at the point of impact (the trauma to the head causes the brain to impact the skull).

You can also get a *contrecoup* injury - this is when the opposite side of the brain then bounces against the back of the skull.

Either of these injuries can damage brain tissue. This can be in the form of swelling of the tissue or of something called "diffuse axonal injury" - micro-shearing of nerve cells.

In any event , the injury to the central nervous system more or less "overloads" the system and higher level functions - like consciousness - shut down.

There's more to it than this, but this suffices as a basic explanation.