Whether the spinal cord can be considered an organ is still a subject of debate within the medical community. While the spinal cord plays a vital role in the body, some argue that the spinal cord is strictly a bundle of nerves that the brain uses to communicate information to the rest of the body. The fact that many of the body’s organs can still run without a functioning spinal cord helps to support this argument.

However, many other medical professionals are beginning to support the ideology that the spinal cord is, in fact, an organ because it consists of common tissue and acts as a single function unit, receiving and sending signals from and to the brain and the rest of the body.