A pioneering retrospective and longitudinal study of temperament begun by Alexander Thomas (1914-2000) and Stella Chess (1914-2007) in the late 1950s. Parent descriptors of their infants‚aa behaviours in questionnaires and interviews resulted in the identification of nine dimensions of temperament, subsequently reduced to three broad categories (‘easy babies’, ‘difficult babies’, and ‘slow-to-warm up babies’). As the children …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Neurula
The stage in vertebrate embryogenesis during which the neural plate closes to form the progenitor of the central nervous system (viz., the neural tube). See Embryogenesis, Neural plate, Neural tube, Neurulation
Neurotrophic growth factor (NtGF)
Chemical substance in the nervous system attracting and maintaining specific outgrowing axons. See Axon retraction (or pruning), Glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNtF), Nerve growth factor (NGF), Neurotransmitters
Neurotrophin-NT3
Trophic factors that are important for cell survival. See Axon retraction (or pruning)
Neurotransmitters
Most neurotransmitters are synthesized in the presynaptic neuron, and packaged in synaptic vesicles. They are released by the axon terminal upon arrival of an action potential arrives. Following release, they bind to receptors on the cell membrane of the postsynaptic cell, and in doing so alter the electrical activity of the postsynaptic cell. Neurotransmitters are …
Neuroscience
A term that has been defined in a various ways. It is best considered to be an umbrella term for all those sciences that try to understand how the brain and nervous system mediate behaviour in terms of the mechanisms and processes involved in this mediation. At one level, it combines with cognitive psychology and …
Neuroticism
A broad factor of temperament or personality, including characteristics of anxiety, fearfulness, jealousy, sadness, shyness, and irritability. Moreover, individuals who have a relatively high degree of neuroticism appear to react adversely to sources of environmental stress (i.e., they have a proneness to distress or discomfort). These sorts of associations led Hans Eysenck (1916-1997) to propose …
Neuropsychology
A sub-discipline in physiological psychology that studies brain-behavior relationships in humans, particularly those relating to cognitive functions, by means of specially-devised tests and the use of experimental procedures. Studies of patients with verifiable brain lesions has become a hallmark of research in neuropsychology, following the operation carried out by the neurosurgeon William B. Scoville (1906-1984) …
Neuronal migration disorders
A broadgroup of disorders resulting from genetic, chromosomal or environmental causesthat disturb the process by which newly generated neural cells migrate to theirproper position in the brain, causing distinctive morphological patternsaccording to the causal agent, affected site and gestational age at which thedisturbance occurs. It is a disturbancein migration that typically starts in the second …
Neurophysiology
That branch of physiology concerned with functioning of the nervous system, and which in its modern form has its roots in the seminal work of Charles S. Sherrington (1857-19520 among others at the turn of the 20th century. See Developmental psychobiology, Neurology, Neuropsychology, Neuroscience