For more than 1,500 years, nerves were thought to function through the action of 'animal spirits'. In the seventeenth century, René Descartes conceived of these 'spirits' as liquids or gases, and used ...

Pulling your hand away from a hot object, blinking because it's very bright or kicking when someone taps the tendon below your kneecap - these are all innate reflex actions. They happen rapidly, you ...

KnowHow Team explains: When we think about any delicious food, our mouth waters because of a neurological reaction: the reflex action. A Russian scientist, Anton Pavlov first reported this, in the ...

A reflex action follows this general sequence and does not involve the conscious part of the brain. This is why the response is so fast. Receptor in the skin detects a stimulus (the change in ...