User:F4at96/Reflex

In biology, a reflex, or reflex action, is an involuntary, unplanned sequence or action in response to a stimulus. Reflexes are found with varying levels of complexity in organisms with a nervous system. A reflex occurs via neural pathways in the nervous system called reflex arcs. A stimulus initiates a neural signal, which is carried to a synapse. The signal is then transferred across the synapse to a separate neuron which evokes a target response. These neural signals do not always travel to the brain, so many reflexes are an automatic response to a stimulus that does not receive or need conscious thought.

Many reflexes are fine-tuned to increase organism survival and self-defense. This is observed in reflexes such as the startle reflex, which provides an automatic response to an unexpected stimuli, 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. Long-latency reflexes produce nerve signals that are transduced across multiple synapses before generating the reflex response.



The myotatic or muscle stretch reflexes (sometimes known as deep tendon reflexes) provide information on the integrity of the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system. This information can be detected using electromyography (EMG). Generally, decreased reflexes indicate a peripheral problem, and lively or exaggerated reflexes a central one. A stretch reflex is the contraction of a muscle in response to its lengthwise stretch.

Edits/Revisions

- Reflexes don't have to send a report to the brain

Lead
- stipulation of a reflex is the requirement of a nervous system (remove human bias); 5 basic components needed

- reflexes don't have to send a report to the brain

Article body
- add non-human examples of reflexes - also a graphic?

- link to List of reflexes