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If opposing muscles were to contract at the same time, a muscle tear can occur. This may occur during physical activities such as running, during which opposing muscles engage and disengage sequentially to produce coordinated movement. Reciprocal inhibition facilitates ease of movement and is a safeguard against injury.
In biology, a reflex, or reflex action, is an involuntary, unplanned sequence or action [1] and nearly instantaneous response to a stimulus. [2] [3] The simplest reflex is initiated by a stimulus, which activates an afferent nerve. The signal is then passed to a response neuron, which generates a response.
For example, Antagonistic muscle cocontraction can be either voluntary or involuntary. Additionally, because much of the legs' movements are controlled by the spinal cord and because of the larger neural delay associated with sending signals to the leg muscles, leg stiffness is more involuntarily controlled than arm stiffness.
A common example of reciprocal innervation, is the effect of the nociceptive (or nocifensive) reflex, or defensive response to pain, otherwise commonly known as the withdrawal reflex; a type of involuntary action of the body to remove the body part from the vicinity of an offending object by contracting the appropriate muscles (usually flexor ...
Motor control includes conscious voluntary movements, subconscious muscle memory and involuntary reflexes, [1] as well as instinctual taxes. To control movement, the nervous system must integrate multimodal sensory information (both from the external world as well as proprioception) and elicit the necessary signals to recruit muscles to carry ...
Shivering — shaking of the body in response to early hypothermia in warm-blooded animals. Sneeze or sternutation — a convulsive expulsion of air from the lungs normally triggered by irritation of the nasal mucosa in the nose. Startle-evoked movement — involuntary initiation of a planned movement in response to a startling stimulus ...
Essentially, motor neurons, also known as motoneurons, are made up of a variety of intricate, finely tuned circuits found throughout the body that innervate effector muscles and glands to enable both voluntary and involuntary motions. Two motor neurons come together to form a two-neuron circuit.
The withdrawal reflex (nociceptive flexion reflex or flexor withdrawal reflex) is a spinal reflex intended to protect the body from damaging stimuli. [1] The reflex rapidly coordinates the contractions of all the flexor muscles and the relaxations of the extensors in that limb causing sudden withdrawal from the potentially damaging stimulus. [2]