page_title: Plantar reflex
section_title: Interpretation
hierarchical_section_title: Plantar reflex / Interpretation
caption_attribution_description: English: Spontaneous Babinski Sign in a 4 weeks old unhealthy child. Deutsch: Spontanes Babinski-Zeichen bei einem 4 Wochen alten gesunden Kind.
context_page_description: The plantar reflex is a reflex elicited when the sole of the foot is stimulated with a blunt instrument. The reflex can take one of two forms. In healthy adults, the plantar reflex causes a downward response of the hallux. An upward response of the hallux is known as the Babinski response or Babinski sign, named after the neurologist Joseph Babinski. The presence of the Babinski sign can identify disease of the spinal cord and brain in adults, and also exists as a primitive reflex in infants.
  While first described in the medical literature by Babinski in 1896, the reflex has been identified in art at least as early as Botticelli's Madonna and Child With an Angel, painted in the mid-15th century.
context_section_description: The Babinski sign can indicate upper motor neuron lesion constituting damage to the corticospinal tract. Occasionally, a pathological plantar reflex  is the first and only indication of a serious disease process and a clearly abnormal plantar reflex often prompts detailed neurological investigations, including CT scanning of the brain or MRI of the spine, as well as lumbar puncture for the study of cerebrospinal fluid.
  The phrase "negative Babinski sign" is sometimes used for the normal flexor plantar response.
caption: Babinski's sign in a healthy newborn
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