Reexes and Reaction Times Kuracloud Flashcards
What does the effect of the Jendrassik maneuver indicate about the neural pathways involved in simple reflexes?
There is a heightened stimuli response from the body.
a medical procedure that increases the strength of a patient’s reflexes, especially the knee jerk reflex
Jendrassik maneuver
Briey describe the evolutionary advantage of a withdrawal reflex.
it elicits contraction of the muscles, and heightens the sensory reflexes during a fight-or-flight response.
involves a complex neural pathway. It is triggered when bright light enters the other eye.
consensual light reflex
Describe the response of the pupil when light was shone on it.
constricts
Describe the response of the pupil in the other eye (the one that did not have light shone on it).
constricts
What is the main stimulus for this reflex?
light
What can you infer from your observations about the neural connections behind this reflex?
the pupil constricts to regulate the amount of light.
Based on your observations, what is the apparent biological advantage of the pupillary light reflex?
adjustment to bright environments
Did you observe a difference between auditory and visual cues? Could this difference really be due to different processing times in the brain?
The mean indicates that auditory cues are far faster in terms of processing time in the brain. The dierence is due to the different processing speeds of auditory and visual cues.
Consider two volunteers: Liam is 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall and Jacqui is 1.4 m (4.6 ft) tall. Which volunteer will have the faster ankle-jerk reex? Can you explain why?
Jacqui will have faster reflexes since they have shorter neural pathways because of their stout height. This ensures a faster route in delivering reflexes.
Auditory cues are more consistently quicker than visual cues. Why?
This is partly because sound travels faster than light in certain mediums (though light travels faster in a vacuum), and the brain can often react to sounds more quickly than visual stimuli.
