What Are Hiccups, and Why Do We Get Them??

I don't know if there's ever been a time in all of human existence that someone got the hiccups and they said sweet I hope this lasts as long as possible the fact is hiccups are super annoying and they can even be painful today's video we're gonna discuss the anatomy behind hiccups how they happen and even some possible treatments for them let's do this first let's figure out how breathing works mechanically so right off the bat you're gonna notice the heart here in the center and it's covered with this fibrous connective tissue called the pericardium and this is gonna go ahead and secrete a lubricating serous fluid that's gonna bathe the heart and kind of reduce the friction as it interacts with the surrounding tissue during the heart beats on either side you're gonna see the lungs and if I pull this right lung out you're gonna see that there are these look almost like cuts but I didn't make any of these cuts these are called fissures and what they do is they create different lobes in the lungs so you have three lobes in the right lung and then two lobes in the left lung on the surface of the lungs as well as the inside of the ribcage here I can even show this you can see that kind of glossy Sheen look there this is a tissue called the pleura and that's just any single layer of epithelial cells but what it does is it covers the surface of the lungs it also covers the top portion of this muscle here called the diaphragm and then it wraps around and connects on that inner lining of the thoracic cavity so it's one layer that folds back in on itself so that you kind of have like a bilayer of it but they don't fully connect instead there's a fluid that separates those two pleural layers the part of the pleura that connects to the ribcage or that inner thoracic cavity we call the parietal pleura and then the pleura that's on the surface of the lungs we call the visceral pleura that fluid that's between the two layers of the pleura creates a pressure and that pressure essentially connects the lungs themselves to that ribcage wall as that upper portion of the diaphragm the diaphragm muscle is going to be connected to that inner lining of the thoracic cavity and you can see where we had to cut it away from that anterior part of the wall what's gonna happen is it's going to contract because this has made a skeletal muscle and remember these lungs are essentially connected to it from that pleura so as it contracts that pressure that exists between those two pleural layers is going to be pushing and it's going to kind of go with the diaphragm so the diaphragm you can see how it's kind of curved here it's going to flatten and as it flattens like that essentially the lungs are going to occupy that newly created space I like to think of it similar to a syringe with the syringe when you pull it you're creating a new space and that causes air or fluid to rush in and occupy that space we call this a negative pressure and this is how you breathe when the diaphragm contracts it creates a negative pressure inside of your lungs which just forces the air to then rush in it's all about pressure now that we know how breathing works a hiccup is essentially just when this diaphragm muscle is going to spasm and contract involuntarily now there are a ton of different causes for hiccups I've seen everything from laughing too much eating too quickly drinking too quickly being scared crying too much the list goes on and on now we've even observed fetuses yes when you're still inside your mom's womb hiccupping and some think this is practice for breathing once they're born interestingly we're still not a hundred percent sure as to what causes pickups I mean yes eating too quickly can cause them but physiologically we're still not a hundred percent sure as to what's going on what we do know is that this nerve right here called the phrenic nerve is going to be sending a signal up towards the brainstem and the brain stem is going to process that signal and then send an outgoing signal back down that same phrenic nerve and also uses another one called the vagus and that's gonna cause the diaphragm to contract we call this a reflex arc and you just get stuck in this pattern but as the diaphragm contracts remember air is gonna try to rush in but almost immediately your vocal cords are gonna slam shut so as so then the air just runs into them and you get that typical yeah sound typically hiccups just go away on their own it just takes time and patience and they usually resolve within a few minutes but there have been several documented cases of hiccups lasting much longer with the world record being 69 years that just sounds awful but like I said typically they resolve within a few minutes as for a cure for the hiccups there are probably thousands of home remedies that range from everything from drinking water I saw someone said you had to hold your breath and jump on one foot someone said you needed to smack the forehead while saying peanut butter I mean they're all over the place for me I've always just held my breath for as long as I can and that typically works but there is no scientifically known cure for hiccups but what all of those home remedies have in common is they are jumping in the middle and interrupting that reflex arc because if you can stop the incoming signal or the outgoing signal going to or from the diaphragm well you can essentially stop hiccups so that's what all these home remedies are doing so I guess you can kind of just choose whatever works for you as long as it works all you need to do is get in the middle of that reflex arc now hopefully that video helped you understand hiccups a little bit and I promise I won't tell anyone if you want to hop on one leg holding your breath and smacking yourself in the forehead to get rid of them whatever works for you is fine with me but I want to mention that we are partnering with codex anatomic as' and what they do is produce amazing anatomical art like this they also have pins and stickers so if you want to go ahead and shop around and get some of this amazing art you'll find a link down in our description below thanks for watching and I will see you in the next video [Music] you

Channel: Institute of Human Anatomy

Views: 1,759,258

Keywords: why do we hiccup, hiccup (symptom), what are hiccups, how to get rid of hiccups, what causes hiccups, what are hiccups for, world record for hiccups, institute of human anatomy, institute of human anatomy tiktok, hiccup cure, why do we get hiccups, what are hiccups caused by, what causes hiccups in newborns, hiccup cure video, what are hiccups made of, evolution of hiccups, what are hiccups and how to get rid of them, what are hiccups and why do we get them, health (industry)

Id: MAsRkRK-S2E

Length: 6min 34sec (394 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020