AP PSYCHOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Spinal Cord is the center that controls reflex action. Reflex actions are actions that are carried out quickly in response to a stimulus and thus do not involve any thinking, and thus are under the control of spinal cord.

Detailed explanation-2: -Many reflexes start at the muscle or skin and go to the spinal cord. When the action potential reaches the nerve ending, the signal is transferred to another neuron, such as an interneuron or motor neuron. The action potential then travels outside the spinal cord to a muscle.

Detailed explanation-3: -A reflex arc is a neural pathway that controls a reflex. In vertebrates, most sensory neurons do not pass directly into the brain, but synapse in the spinal cord. This allows for faster reflex actions to occur by activating spinal motor neurons without the delay of routing signals through the brain.

Detailed explanation-4: -The familiar knee-jerk reflex, tested routinely by physicians, is a spinal reflex in which a brief, rapid tap on the knee excites muscle spindle afferent neurons, which then excite the motor neurons of the stretched muscle via a single synapse in the spinal cord.

Detailed explanation-5: -Spinal cord reflexes are stereotyped and dependable motor responses, such as the stretch of a muscle. The neuronal circuit involved is called the reflex arc. The reflex arc includes the sensory receptors, the sensory afferent nerves, the interneurons in the spinal cord, and the motor neurons.