Pons- not just for relay? what about medulla?

[hokie4life]

i thought the pons are the relay center that lets the crotex and cerelbellum communicate. And that the medulla controls breathing, heart rate, gastrointestinal activity.

how come a question says that human breathing control centers are medulla and the pons?

isn't breathing just medulla?

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[smarterray]

The pons is indeed another breathing center. It's just another fact that you have to know, I guess. Make sure you know the kind of things that would happen if a part of the brain were damaged. For example, if the pons were damaged, then breathing might be impaired for that individual. Another example might be, what would happen if a certain gene were mutated...how would that affect the phenotype? Etc. These are the kind of questions they might ask you on the DAT.

Studying the parts of the brain is one of the most annoying parts of biology, mainly because so many things overlap and in general it's still not very well understood by most scientists. For the DAT, I reviewed and made flash cards combining the facts from the Kaplan Blue Book, DAT Destroyer, and Schaum's.

 

[hokie4life]

this was a great response thank you!! i just always thought that when asked about breathing "think medulla!" i guess pons is part of the answer too. will they ever seperate them though like have medulla and pons as the choices to what controls breathing...then medulla is the "better" answer correct? because pons just helps relay the messages about breathing therefore effecting its control but the medulla is the part that really controls the breathing?