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After talking about Christopher Reeve in class, I decided to look him up.  Within the first paragraph of a Time magazine article, I found out that Reeve relied on a ventilator to breath.  As far as I know, the brain stem controls breathing.  However, Reeve's injury is between the first and second vertebrae.  This makes no sense to me.  I thought that because Reeve's brain stem was above C2 vertebrae, he should retain the ability to breath.  I guess I thought that breathing was controlled by the autonomic nervous system.  If his heart was still able to beat and he was conscious, then how could he not breath on his own?  I found another article saying that after intensive respiratory therapy, Reeve was able to breath on his own for about 30 minutes.  If he required a ventilator the rest of the time, and could not control his body below his injury, then how was this possible?  How can you train part of the body controlled by the brain and not yourself to do something?