PHYL 2041 Lecture 14: PHYL 2041 Lecture 14
20 Nov 2018
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Document Summary
When we talk about spinal animal, we are talking about an animal that has its spinal cord separated from the bottom of the brainstem, the medulla. When physiologists start looking motor behaviour particularly, they start to wonder what do the higher regions of the cns contribute to motor behaviour. They tried making different preparations where there were cuts made across the brainstem and different levels. These different levels of cuts became known as varying levels of decerebration. If the upper region (mainly the cortex of the cerebrum) is separated form the rest of the brainstem, it is a decorticate preparation. Spinal reflexes is behaviour produced entirely within the spinal cord: two types of reflexes based on the afferent input, muscle receptor reflexes (inputs from muscle spindles, tendon organs, cutaneous reflexes (produced by skin pressure or pain) Spinal reflexes are all done by the circuitry inside the spinal cord.
