Reflex arc

A nerve path chain composed of an incoming sensory neuron, one or more interneurons located in the central nervous system, and an outgoing motor neuron.


The basic system of a reflex action, where a receptor is linked to a motor neurone which in turn is linked to an effector muscle.


Nervous circuit involved in a reflex; at its simplest, it involves a sensory nerve linked with a motor nerve via an association nerve (also called an interneuron), supplying a muscle or gland, as in the patellar (kneejerk) reflex. Reflexes are very fast since the entire signal process takes place locally at the spinal cord level—information does not need to travel to the brain, be processed there, and return down the spinal cord to the effector.


The path followed by a nerve impulse to produce a reflex action. The impulse originates in a receptor at the point of stimulation, passes through an afferent neuron or neurons to a reflex center in the brain or spinal cord, and from the center out through efferent neurons to the effector organ, where the response occurs.


 


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