Give scientific reasons for the following statements:
Injury to medulla oblongata leads to death.
Topic: Injury to the medulla oblongata
Answer
Because the medulla oblongata controls the INVOLUNTARY activities essential to life — the HEARTBEAT, the rate of BREATHING, the diameter of the blood vessels and so blood pressure, together with swallowing, coughing and vomiting. If it is damaged these cannot continue, and death follows.
The reason must name TWO OR THREE of the vital activities it controls — saying only "it controls involuntary actions" is too vague.
It is called the VITAL CENTRE precisely because the activities it governs cannot be interrupted even briefly. You can survive damage to much of the cerebrum; you cannot survive damage here.
That is also why the medulla is the lowest and most protected part of the brain, continuous with the spinal cord and enclosed at the base of the skull.