Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Diving reflex in a human baby. The diving reflex, also known as the diving response and mammalian diving reflex, is a set of physiological responses to immersion that overrides the basic homeostatic reflexes, and is found in all air-breathing vertebrates studied to date.
The diving reflex is a set of physiological responses that occur in response to cold water immersion, particularly when the face or body is exposed to cold water. It is an evolutionary adaptation that helps mammals, including humans, manage the challenges of being submerged in cold water.
Most human babies demonstrate an innate swimming or diving reflex from birth until the age of approximately six months, which are part of a wider range of primitive reflexes found in infants and babies, but not children, adolescents and adults. Other mammals also demonstrate this phenomenon (see mammalian diving reflex).
A list of reflexes in humans. Abdominal reflex; Accommodation reflex — coordinated changes in the vergence, lens shape and pupil size when looking at a distant object after a near object. Acoustic reflex or attenuation reflex — contraction of the stapedius and tensor tympani muscles in the middle ear in response to high sound intensities.
It is exhibited strongly in aquatic mammals (seals, [17] otters, dolphins, muskrats), [18] but exists in other mammals, including humans. Diving birds, such as penguins, have a similar diving reflex. [6] The diving reflex is triggered specifically by chilling the face and breath-hold.
Many people miscalculate the impact of the cold water. Emergency and medical experts will tell you it’s unhealthy. Yet dozens in Central Texas took the plunge over the weekend for fun and charity.
Other mammals also demonstrate this phenomenon (see mammalian diving reflex). The diving response involves apnea, reflex bradycardia, and peripheral vasoconstriction; in other words, babies immersed in water spontaneously hold their breath, slow their heart rate, and reduce blood circulation to the extremities (fingers and toes). [9]
Decompression sickness (DCS; also called divers' disease, the bends, aerobullosis, and caisson disease) is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during decompression.