Ask Tappity: Science Questions for Kids > Why Does My Funny Bone Hurt?
Why Does My Funny Bone Hurt?
Have you ever hit your funny bone? If you have, you know it’s not the most pleasant feeling. What’s going on? Watch this video to find out, or read our explanation below!
Your Funny Bone Isn’t a Bone
The funny bone isn’t a bone at all - it’s a nerve! Nerves are tiny threads running throughout your entire body. They connect everything to your brain. When something touches your toe, it sends a signal through a nerve to your brain to tell your brain what it's feeling. When you decide to move your leg, your brain sends a message along a nerve to your leg, telling it to move.
The Funny Bone Is An Unprotected Nerve
Nerves are really fragile, so they’re usually protected by bones and muscles. The funny bone is one spot on your body where there’s a gap in the armor protecting your nerves. When you hit your funny bone, you're hitting an unprotected nerve - the Ulnar nerve, which connects your brain to your pinky. In fact, if you gently tap your funny bone, you’ll feel a tingling sensation in your pinky.
Jumbled Signals
Remember how nerves carry signals between your brain and your body? It’s sort of like a row of dominoes - if you touch your pinky, for example, your pinky fires a message to your brain, which travels up the Ulnar Nerve like dominoes being knocked over. When you hit your funny bone, it’s like knocking over a set of dominoes in the middle. You send artificial signals in both directions, and your brain doesn’t know what to make of it - that’s what results in that uncomfortable buzzing feeling you get when you hit your funny bone.
Human Body Facts for Kids
Got human body questions? We’ve got human body answers!
-
Involuntary reflexes, like pulling your hand away from a hot stove, happen without your brain’s input. For these, the signal only travels as far as your spine, which instantly sends the instruction to pull back. That way, you can respond faster to the stimuli than you would if the signal had to go all the way to your brain and back. This kind of reflex is what doctors are testing when they tap your knee with a hammer.
-
Nerves communicate using a chain reaction of electrically charged atoms. When doctors want to know how your heart is beating, they measure the electrical currents instructing your heart to beat using a machine called an electrocardiogram, or ECG. Some animals, like sharks, actually hunt for prey by detecting the tiny electrical current all animals use to move their muscles.
-
If you were to work out only one hand, after a while your other hand would also get stronger. It’s true! Scientists have proved this result in numerous studies. How does this work? Well, even though you didn’t work out the muscles, you worked out your nervous system, and the nervous system is interconnected in ways scientists are still working to understand.
-
Imagine you’re pushing on a door, but it won’t budge. So you push harder, and harder, until finally you push it open! How did your muscles and nerves help you open the door? Well, when you need to pull or push something harder, it feels like your muscles are just working more, but what’s actually happening is that more of your muscles are working. Your brain automatically activates as few of your muscular cells as it thinks are needed to accomplish a task. As you need more force, more and more nerves recruit more and more muscle cells. Your brain also starts recruiting other parts of your body - your legs, and back, and whatever else you need to get that door open!
-
Your body heals by growing new cells to replace damaged ones. These cells are created by cell division - the cells you already have split into two cells. Nerves can’t replicate themselves - the ones you have are the ones you got! Because of this, nerve damage is usually permanent. That’s why your nerves are so well protected.
More Answers to Human Body Questions from Kids
What is a brain freeze? Why do we yawn? The Tappity Human Body library has interactive lessons with answers to those questions and more!
Want Even More Science for Kids?
Dive into Tappity, the world’s largest interactive K-5 science library. Find everything from penguins to planets and even protozoa! So whether you’re an early engineer, a budding biologist, or an aspiring astronaut, you'll be sure to discover something new just for you.
Explore Our Science Lessons
