Your brain is you!

Everything you think, feel, see, hear, and do is mediated by your brain. It holds your memories, creates your dreams, lets you learn, controls your muscles, and tells your body when to eat and sleep. It's where your consciousness comes from! Pretty cool, huh? Neuroscience is the study of the brain and its interactions with the body. We (Stefanie and Erin) are neuroscience graduate students at Emory University. This website is a way for us to answer all of your neuroscience questions. You can also read questions asked by others.

Here's how it works:

Email your questions to braininfo@gmail.com. You can include your name, grade and school if you want. We'll put your question on this website along with an answer. If you really stump us, we might ask a professor! Check back often for new questions.

Why does your funny bone hurt when you hit it?

Man, hitting your funny bone can really hurt. That's because your funny bone is not really a bone - it's a nerve! Specifically, it's called the ulnar nerve and it runs all the way down to your hand. That's why sometimes your hand tingles when you hit your elbow.

Nerves are the wires that connect different parts of the body to the brain. Each nerve is actually a bundle of many tiny wires, called axons. The axons in a nerve either bring information from the body to a brain cell or send information from a brain cell to the body. So when you bang your elbow, your brain gets a really loud message -- OUCH!!

 So why is your funny bone called your funny bone if it's really a nerve? Well, a nearby bone to the ulnar nerve is called the humerus. That's the bone in your upper arm. Get it? Humerus... humorous? Pretty funny huh? Here's an x-ray of the humerus.