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Some observations on spinal reflexes in man

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Summary

An attempt has been made to assess the functional significance of certain spinal reflexes demonstrable in man, and to consider their relationships to tendon jerks and tonus. Selected older studies have been reviewed in light of current knowledge of stretch reflex activity. The physiological basis of the electrically induced reflexes first described by Paul Hoffmann has been more strictly defined. Certain features of motoneuronal excitability changes associated with them apparently represent properties, within the monosynaptic arc, of motor nerve cells themselves. Other, later, changes indicate participation of additional and more complex inhibitory mechanisms relayed through much higher levels. Two have been identified by their effects on motoneurone excitability. Others, perhaps more important in the total pattern of control of motor nerve cell discharge in response to muscle stretch, have not yet been recognized. This is emphasized by lack of correlation between clinical tonus and/or tendon jerk activity, on the one hand, and demonstrable interference with the identified central inhibitory mechanisms, on the other. It has been postulated that control of Hoffmann's reflexes, tendon jerks, and tonus, to the extent that it is myotatic, depends on additive recruitment of afferent discharge from muscle and of successively complex central mechanisms.

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  1. From the Subdepartment of Neurological Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Hospital and The Baltimore City Hospitals, USA

    J. W. Magladery

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Aided by grants from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness, U. S. Public Health Service

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Magladery, J.W. Some observations on spinal reflexes in man. Pflügers Archiv 261, 302–321 (1955). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00364122

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