Reflex Lab

This was a lab where my partner and I did certain tests to test our reflexes. We did one activity where one person was holding up a clear piece of plastic wrap and the other person is throwing cotton balls at them. Each time the cotton ball is approaching the eye, the person who is holding the plastic wrap can’t help but blink. This is because of the function of our neurons. The sensory function is when sensory receptors monitor changes inside and outside of the body to stimulate certain actions. The motor function effects a response by activating muscles or glands to physical do the movement. The integrative function processes and interprets the input. These functions work simultaneously and very quickly.

Photopupillary Reflex: Once the light was shined onto the naked eye, the pupil immediately shrunk smaller. Once the light was not in the eye, the pupil became a lot bigger. This happened because of the somatic nervous system. A nerve impulse was carried from the brain or spinal cord to the muscles and glands, causing a voluntarily control skeletal muscle in the eye to expand from bigger to smaller.

Knee Jerk Reflex: When the knee was lightly tapped, the leg kicked out immediately a little. This is due to the monosynaptic reflex because there is one one synapse in the circuit needed to complete the reflex. Once my partner tapped my knee, information is sent to the spinal cord. After one synapse in the ventral horn of the spinal cord, the information is sent back to the muscle, causing my leg to kick out.

Blink Reflex: We did one activity where one person was holding up a clear piece of plastic wrap and the other person is throwing cotton balls at them. Each time the cotton ball is approaching the eye, the person who is holding the plastic wrap can’t help but blink. This is because of the function of our neurons. The sensory function is when sensory receptors monitor changes inside and outside of the body to stimulate certain actions.

Babe, what’s your sign?: When I used a pen with a the cap on to drag it from the sole of the foot from the heel to the base of the big toe, her toes flexed and moved closer together. This is part of the autonomic nervous system where via parasympathetic, it counterbalances the effect of the sympathetic. It restores the body to a resting state following stress.

How Fast are You: When my partner dropped a meter stick, I caught it with an average time of 0.22 seconds. However, once we tested the same experiment while I was one my phone, my performance dropped dramatically with an average of 0.34 seconds. This is because your brain can’t multitask. Our brain is actually just jumping from one activity to the other. Therefore, my reflexes became a lot slower.