Whenever you accidentally touch the hot pan or prick a penin your hand you react to this immediately by taking back your hands. Your actions are immediate, sudden and involuntary. In scientific term, this reaction of human beings is termed as reflex actions. In the reflex action, the spinal cord has a very vital role to play. The pathways of reflex action are shown by the reflex arc, the whole action of this reflexcomes with the immediate effect where the brain has no control over this whole process.
Spinal cord along with the brain is responsible for the functioning of this reflex action. For example pupil of the eye changes its color when coming with the contact of light, sudden blinking of eyes when an insect comes near the eye area, sudden removal of the hand from a sharpening area and many more examples are there to learn about the reflex action.
What is a reflex arc?
The reflex arc is a pathway that controls reflexes as it is an impulse even before it reached to the brain because there are some stimuli that requirean automatic response without conscious thoughts.
The above diagram shows how the reflex arc works where the receptor is that sense organ that senses danger and the sensory neurons pick up the signals from sensory organ and send them through different neurons which are present in the spinal cord. The muscles that are attached to the sense organ moves the organ away from the danger. In the reflex action, the signal doesn’t take that much time to travel to the brain they act immediately when they sense the danger.
What are human reflex?
The deep tendon reflex also is known as a myotatic reflex, they the information providers to the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system, These reflex actions show some disturbances in both the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system as decreased reflex shows the peripheral problem and exaggerated reflex shows the problem in the central nervous system. There so many kinds of reflexes, some of them are extensor digitorum reflex, patellar reflex, ankle jerk reflex, triceps reflex, and many more.
Tendon reflex is mentioned as a contraction in the muscles in response to the striking tendon. Primitive reflexes are normally and mainly observer in new infants as they are not seen in adults they are only in the newborn and these reflexes make them react to the environment before any change in the environment and they include more reflex also known as the startle reflex, rooting reflex, sucking reflex and palmomental reflex.