Your gut has over 100 million neurons, more than your spinal cord. Nicole Hollar explains how the enteric nervous system and vagus nerve control digestion, and why your gut can keep working even without signals from your brain.
The enteric system is pretty profound. It has more than 100 million neurons, and that's actually more neurons than nerves in the spinal cord. So put that in perspective. That system has more nerves than your actual spinal cord. And in fact, the vagus nerve, which I mentioned controls most of those things, if you cut it, digestion will continue on its own. So it really goes to show you how powerful the gut and that system is.
