Refractory period (physiology)

Refractoriness is the fundamental property of any object of autowave nature (especially excitable medium) not to respond on stimuli, if the object stays in the specific refractory state. In common sense, refractory period is the characteristic recovery time, a period of time that is associated with the motion of the image point on the left branch of the isocline (for more details, see also Reaction-diffusion and Parabolic partial differential equation).