Question

You step on a sharp rock, your leg goes upward and a moment later you feel pain in your foot. Use the words motor neuron, sensory neuron, and interneuron to explain what happened.

Answer 1

When you step on a sharp rock, your leg goes upward and just a moment later you feel pain in your foot. The fact that your leg goes upward is caused by automatic reflex actions by neuron combinations called reflex arcs. Stepping on a sharp rock for example, a sensory neuron transports an impulse to an interneuron in the spinal cord. The interneuron come together with motor neurons that pull your foot away from the sharp object. The interneuron also come together with motor neurons that control the muscle leg. The muscle legs adjust your position so you don not fall over. The interneuron come together with the other neurons so that you become conscious about what just happened and can take some actions.