APA 2120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Stretch Reflex, Mental Chronometry, Bereitschaftspotential

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Human Kinetics
• Course: APA 2120
• Professor: Tony Carlsen

Document Summary

Muscle contraction (video): neurons travel down the axon into the muscle and transmit a stimulus, actin and myosin, tropomyosin, troponin. Motor unit: consists of one motor neuron and all the muscle fibers it stimulates. Laid out/organized similar to the way our body is laid out (somatotropin mapping: closer to the center of the spinal cord activates more proximal muscles. Central pattern generator that allow movements and reflexes to be made without thinking. Brain stem: reticular formation: really important in regulating things like the startle reflex. 2: more involved in proximal muscle regulation, regulates muscle closer to the center of the body, startle reflex: interacts with voluntary movement. It consists of a generalized whole body reflex to allow unexpected stimulus (sternocleidomastoid tenses) Cerebellum: known as the little brain and sits off the back. Involved in some specific tasks (i. e. posture and balance, coordination, timing)