Re: If you stick your finger up your nose far enough, can you reach your brain?

You are right. The only way you can reach your brain through your nose is if you go through the bones in your skull.

Admin note: The specific bone is the cribriform plate which forms the "ceiling" of your nose. Small smell receptors penetrate through this bone and connect directly with your olfactory nerve. As you can note from a cross-section through the head, your finger wouldn't (fortunately!) make it easily through the sinuses in your nose to reach the cribriform plate.

With severe head injuries this plate can sometimes fracture. If someone comes into the emergency room with lots of clear fluid dripping from their nostrils, we get very worried that have fractured this plate, releasing the fluid that surrounds the brain into the nasal passages. Unless rapidly treated, it is possible to die from such an injury - thus you really wouldn't want to be scratching your brain through your nose!

-L. Bry, MadSci Admin