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Anatomy of the Nervous System
If you think of the brain as a central computer that controls all the functions of your body, then the nervous system is like a network that relays messages back and forth from it to different parts of the body. It does this via the spinal cord, which runs from the brain down through the back and contains threadlike nerves that branch out to every organ and body part.v

Whooping cough (say: hoop-ing kof) - also called pertussis (say: pur-tuh-sus) - is one of those illnesses. It's a bacterial infection of the respiratory system, which includes your lungs and breathing tubes. Whooping cough got its name because kids who had it would cough a lot, and in between coughs, they'd make a "whoop" sound when they tried to get a breath.

Once a baby is born, he or she needs to breathe continuously to get oxygen. In a premature baby, the part of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) that controls breathing is not yet mature enough to allow nonstop breathing. This causes large bursts of breath followed by periods of shallow breathing or stopped breathing. The medical term for this condition is apnea of prematurity, or AOP.