BioConcepts

reflexréflexe (fr.); Reflex (ger.)

• An automatic or involuntary response of the nervous system to a stimulus. A reflex may be a monosynaptic spinal reflex (e.g. a simple motor response to a sensory stimulus), involving transmission through the spinal cord only, or polysynaptic and involving synaptic transmission in the brain. A conditioned reflex is one that is learned through repeated association of a stimulus with either rewarding (e.g. food) or aversive (e.g. punishment) events. (Oxford Dict. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 2008)
  category behaviour

  1833

  Physiologists have hitherto enumerated only three sources or principles of muscular action,—volition, the motive influence of respiration, and irritability. There is, however, a fourth source of muscular motion distinct from any of these, though not hitherto distinguished, to which I have ventured to give the designation of the reflex. Volition and the motive influence of respiration are direct in their course, and spontaneous in their action; the former proceeding from the cerebrum, the latter from the medulla oblongata. The movements of irritability are the result of the immediate application of a stimulus to the nervo-muscular fibre itself. The reflex function is different from any of these: It remains attached to the medulla spinalis, when the cerebrum and the medulla oblongata are removed: it is not direct like volition, or the motive power of respiration. Its seat is the medulla generally: it ceases when the medulla is removed, leaving the irritability entire: it is not excited immediately, like the movements of irritability, but mediately, in a reflex course, through the medulla, from the part stimulated to the part moved.

  Hall, M. (1833). On the reflex function of the medulla oblongata and medulla spinalis. Philos. Trans. Roy Soc. Lond. 123, 635-665: 658.

  1890

  The actions we call instinctive all conform to the general reflex type; they are called forth by determinate sensory stimuli in contact with the animal’s body, or at a distance in his environment

  James, W. (1890). Principles of Psychology (Cambridge, Mass. 1983): 1005.

  1904/20

  Die Instinkte sind mit den Reflexen zusammenzustellen. Sie unterscheiden sich von ihnen nur durch die größere Kompliziertheit, insbesondere dadurch, daß sie nicht nur eine Tätigkeit eines Organes, sondern Handlungen des ganzen Individuums bedingen

  Ziegler, H.E. (1904/20). Der Begriff des Instinktes einst und jetzt: 80.

  1924

  Ein Tier muß derart auf die Erscheinungen der Außenwelt reagieren, um durch seine gesamten Antwortreaktionen seine Existenz zu sichern. […] Die Reflexe sind die Elemente dieser fortwährenden Anpassung dieser ununterbrochenen Gleichgewichtseinstellungen

  Pawlow, I.P. (1924). Vorlesungen über die Arbeit der Großhirnhemisphären (Sämtliche Werke, Bd. IV, hg. v. L. Pickenhain, Berlin 1953): 7.

  1930

  Nahrungsreflex [...] Aggressionsreflex [...] Abwehrreflex [...] Spielreflex [...] Elternreflex

  Pawlow, I.P. (1930). Kurzer Abriss der höheren Nerventätigkeit (Sämtliche Werke, Bd. III/2, hg. v. L. Pickenhain, Berlin 1953, 367-381): 369.

  1951

  Reflex.=An innate relatively simple and stereotyped response involving the central nervous system and occurring very shortly after the stimulus which evokes it. It specifically involves a part only of the organism, though the whole may be affected, and is usually a response to localised sensory stimuli

  Thorpe, W.H. (1951). The definition of some terms used in animal behaviour studies. Bull. Anim. Behav. 9, 34-40: 35f.

  1955

  Die kopernikanische Revolution in der Physiologie der Bewegung ist die Dissoziation der Begrifflichkeiten von Gehirn und sensomotorischem Zentrum, die Entdeckung exzentrischer Zentren, die Herausbildung des Reflexbegriffs

  Canguilhem, G. (1955). La formation du concept de réflexe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (dt. Die Herausbildung des Reflexbegriffs im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, München 2008): 157.