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- Glossary
Rhodopsin
A specific opsin found in the rods of the retina.
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- Glossary
Cortical blindness
When the primary visual cortex is destroyed, those affected are effectively blind, even though their eyes are undamaged. However, they are often unconsciously able to grasp and catch objects and even name them when asked to guess. This effect is known as blind sight.
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- Glossary
rostral
A positional term – rostral means "towards the beak." In relation to the nervous system, it refers to a direction along the neural axis towards the front, towards the face. In animals (without upright gait), the designation is simpler, as it always means located toward the front. Due to the upright gait of humans, the brain bends in relation to the spinal cord, making rostral at the level of the back become "up."
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- Glossary
Spinal cord
The spinal cord is the part of the central nervous system located in the spine. It contains both the white matter of the nerve fibers and the gray matter of the cell nuclei. Simple reflexes such as the knee-jerk reflex are already processed here, as sensory and motor neurons are directly connected. The spinal cord is divided into the cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and sacral spinal cord.
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- Glossary
Bulbous corpuscle
Bulbous corpuscles – or Ruffini corpuscles – are slow mechanoreceptors that detect skin stretching and joint movements.
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- Glossary
Resting potential
The membrane potential of a neuron at rest. The inflow and outflow of ions are in equilibrium. It ranges from –50 to –100 mV.
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- Glossary
Round window
The round window is a membrane-covered opening in the cochlea on the middle ear side. It is connected to the scala tympani and enables the necessary pressure equalization in the inner ear when sound is transmitted through the oval window.
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- Glossary
Saccade
Rapid eye movement, which usually occurs unconsciously. It is a quick and jerky movement of the eyes, in which the eye spontaneously focuses on an object. When reading, for example, the eyes jump from one short word to the next. During a saccade, visual information processing is greatly reduced.
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- Glossary
Saltatory conduction
The term is derived from the Latin "saltare" – to jump. And this is exactly what an impulse does along a myelinated nerve: it jumps from one Ranvier node to the next, which greatly increases the speed of nerve conduction.
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- Glossary
Tympanic duct
The tympanic duct or scala tympani is the lower of the three canals of the cochlea. Like the scala vestibuli, this canal is also filled with a lymph-like fluid.
