Steps
A tendon reflex operates as follows:
- As the tension applied to a tendon increases, the Golgi tendon organ (sensory receptor) is stimulated (depolarized to threshold).
- Nerve impulses (action potentials) arise and propagate into the spinal cord along a sensory neuron.
- Within the spinal cord (integrating center), the sensory neuron activates an inhibitory interneuron that makes a synapse with a motor neuron.
- The inhibitory neurotransmitter inhibits (hyperpolarizes) the motor neuron, which then generates fewer nerve impulses.
- The muscle relaxes and relieves excess tension.
Read more about this topic: Golgi Tendon Reflex
Famous quotes containing the word steps:
“All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“All our steps are ordered by the LORD; how then can we understand our own ways?”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 20:24.