Tendon Reflex (Nursing)

00:00 So the next reflex is the tendon reflex.

00:04 This causes relaxation of a muscle that is attached to a stimulated tendon.

00:10 This usually controls muscle tension and is different from the stretch reflex which controlled muscle length.

00:19 An example of a tendon reflex would be if someone were to throw a heavy bowling ball to you.

00:27 Because that tension is so strong and that force is so strong, your reflex will cause you to drop the bowling ball or relax your muscles instead of trying to take on that tension.

00:41 So in this example when the bowling ball is thrown to you, that increased tension is going to stimulate the sensory receptors in the tendon organ From there, the sensory neuron is going to propagate a nerve impulse to the spinal cord.

01:01 In this portion, an interneuron is going to then send a signal to both the antagonistic and the agonistic muscle So in the integrating center, we're actually going to activate inhibitory interneurons.

01:22 This inhibitory interneuron is going to send a message to the motor neuron which is going to inhibit and cause relaxation of that muscle.

01:33 Opposite to this in the antagonistic muscle we are going to send an activating signal which is going to cause contraction of that muscle.

01:44 So once we get to the effector, the muscle that is attached to the tendon that received that stimulus is going to relax and the antagonist muscle is going to contract This will cause you to drop the bowling ball or in this situation to move your foot backwards.