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Knee jerk or patellar reflex — a kick caused by striking the patellar tendon with a tendon hammer just below the patella, stimulating the L4 and L3 reflex arcs. Moro reflex , a primitive reflex — only in all infants up to 4 or 5 months of age: a sudden symmetric spreading of the arms, then unspreading and crying, caused by an unexpected ...
This is observed in reflexes such as the startle reflex, which provides an automatic response to an unexpected stimulus, and the feline righting reflex, which reorients a cat's body when falling to ensure safe landing. The simplest type of reflex, a short-latency reflex, has a single synapse, or junction, in the signaling pathway. [7]
An example of this is when a person steps on a nail: The leg that is stepping on the nail pulls away, while the other leg takes the weight of the whole body. [4] The crossed extensor reflex is contralateral, meaning the reflex occurs on the opposite side of the body from the stimulus.
The stretch reflex (myotatic reflex), or more accurately "muscle stretch reflex", is a muscle contraction in response to stretching a muscle. The function of the reflex is generally thought to be maintaining the muscle at a constant length but the response is often coordinated across multiple muscles and even joints. [ 1 ]
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]
A reflex arc, then, is the pathway followed by nerves which (a.) carry sensory information from the receptor to the spinal cord, and then (b.) carry the response generated by the spinal cord to effector organs during a reflex action. The pathway taken by the nerve impulse to accomplish a reflex action is called the reflex arc.
Usually the onset of the startle response is a startle reflex reaction. The startle reflex is a brainstem reflectory reaction (reflex) that serves to protect vulnerable parts, such as the back of the neck (whole-body startle) and the eyes (eyeblink) and facilitates escape from sudden stimuli. It is found across many different species ...
The Bainbridge reflex (or Bainbridge effect or atrial reflex) is a cardiovascular reflex causing an increase in heart rate in response to increased stretching of the wall of the right atrium and/or the inferior vena cava as a result of increased venous filling (i.e., increased preload).