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pain

(Encyclopedia)pain, unpleasant or hurtful sensation resulting from stimulation of nerve endings. The stimulus is carried by nerve fibers to the spinal cord and then to the brain, where the nerve impulse is interpre...

catecholamine

(Encyclopedia)catecholamine kătˌəkôlˈəmēn [key], any of several compounds occurring naturally in the body that serve as hormones or as neurotransmitters in the sympathetic nervous system. The catecholamines ...

vision

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Optic nerve vision, physiological sense of sight by which the form, color, size, movements, and distance of objects are perceived. Defects of vision include astigmatism, color blindness, far...

Buck, Linda B.

(Encyclopedia)Buck, Linda B., 1947–, American neurobiologist, b. Seattle, Wash., Ph.D. Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 1980. Buck taught at Harvard Medi...

prion

(Encyclopedia)prion prēˈŏn [key], abnormal form of a protein found in mammals, now generally believed to cause a group of diseases known as prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, which are ...

psychosis

(Encyclopedia)psychosis sīkōˈsĭs [key], in psychiatry, a broad category of mental disorder encompassing the most serious emotional disturbances, often rendering the individual incapable of staying in contact wi...

Hess, Walter Rudolf

(Encyclopedia)Hess, Walter Rudolf, 1881–1973, Swiss physiologist. For his work on the control of organs by certain areas of the brain he shared with Egas Moniz the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He w...

lobotomy

(Encyclopedia)lobotomy lōbŏtˈəmē, lə– [key], surgical procedure for cutting nerve pathways in the frontal lobes of the brain. The operation has been performed on mentally ill patients whose behavioral patte...

psycholinguistics

(Encyclopedia)psycholinguistics, the study of psychological states and mental activity associated with the use of language. An important focus of psycholinguistics is the largely unconscious application of grammati...

Axel, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Axel, Richard ăkˈsĕl [key], 1946–, American pathologist and biochemist, b. New York City, M.D. Johns Hopkins, 1970. A professor at Columbia from 1978, Axel was awarded, with Linda B. Buck, the 20...