page_title: Axon reflex
section_title: Vasodilation
hierarchical_section_title: Axon reflex / Physiology / Vasodilation
caption_attribution_description: English: Vasoconstriction and Vasodilation
context_page_description: The axon reflex is the response stimulated by peripheral nerves of the body that travels away from the nerve cell body and branches to stimulate target organs. Reflexes are single reactions that respond to a stimulus making up the building blocks of the overall signaling in the body's nervous system. Neurons are the excitable cells that process and transmit these reflex signals through their axons, dendrites, and cell bodies. Axons directly facilitate intercellular communication projecting from the neuronal cell body to other neurons, local muscle tissue, glands and arterioles. In the axon reflex, signaling starts in the middle of the axon at the stimulation site and transmits signals directly to the effector organ skipping both an integration center and a chemical synapse present in the spinal cord reflex. The impulse is limited to a single bifurcated axon, or a neuron whose axon branches into two divisions and does not cause a general response to surrounding tissue.
  The axon reflex arc is distinct from the spinal cord reflex arc. In the spinal cord reflex pathway the afferent neuron transmits information to spinal cord interneurons.
context_section_description: The body responds to multiple types of trauma including infection, physical injury, or toxic tissue damage through inflammation. When pain sensation increases, the axon reflex stimulates (and is responsible for) to release of many necessary chemicals that promote local tissue inflammation of the traumatized region. Axon reflex regulates vasodilation, or the extra blood flow to target tissues. Axon reflex allows muscles to contract in the shortest amount of time possible by regulating the signal conduction in the neuromuscular junction.
  In dermal circulation, the axon reflex controls the temperature and circulation in the tissues through vasodilation. Small nerve fibers called thermoreceptors are sensitive to temperature and can act as sensors that initiate axon reflex mediated vasodilation. Neuromuscular diseases can be predicted early by the presence of abnormal muscle fiber reflexes and corresponding twitches. This arises because axons can generate their own action potentials when hyperexcited from the original stimulus; this is known as a fasciculation potential in the muscle fiber. Fasciculations are prominent features in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and could be evidence of abnormal axon reflex with further research.
caption: Vasoconstriction and vasodilation, an effect that can be caused from axon reflex stimulation in certain tissues, demonstrated compared to the normal blood vessel.
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