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- Glossary
Electroconvulsive therapy
A therapeutic procedure with temporary positive effects, used primarily for severe or treatment-resistant depression and catatonia. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) – colloquially referred to as "electroshock therapy" – was developed in the 1930s. Under controlled conditions, electrical stimulation triggers a brief epileptic seizure, which causes neurobiological changes. It is performed exclusively under general anesthesia and muscle relaxation.
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Electrooculogram
The electrooculogram is a recording of the electrical potential of the eyes. It is measured by electrodes placed on the skin around the eye. A method for measuring retinal function and, indirectly, eye movement.
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Embodied cognition
A term from cognitive science that describes how physical states affect the mind. Embodied cognition can be translated as "physically anchored cognition" or "embodied thinking." The mind, body, and environment are understood as parts of a dynamic system in which cognitive processes occur as complex interactions between the components. For example, gesturing can support mathematical abilities.
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Emotions
Neuroscientists understand "emotions" to be complex response patterns that include experiential, physiological, and behavioral components. They arise in response to personally relevant or significant events and generate a willingness to act, through which the individual attempts to deal with the situation. Emotions typically occur with subjective experience (feeling), but differ from pure feeling in that they involve conscious or implicit engagement with the environment. Emotions arise in the limbic system, among other places, which is a phylogenetically ancient part of the brain. Psychologist Paul Ekman has defined six cross-cultural basic emotions that are reflected in characteristic facial expressions: joy, anger, fear, surprise, sadness, and disgust.
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Theory of emotions
Emotions still pose many questions for researchers today: Are there primary and secondary emotions? Are there universal emotions? Are there connections between individual emotions? Different theories of emotion seek answers to questions like these.
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Empathy
The term "empathy" comes from the ancient Greek word for "passion." Today, empathy is understood as the ability to put oneself in another person's shoes and understand their feelings, thoughts, and actions. In neuroscience, empathy is supported by mirror neurons, among other things: nerve cells that show similar activity when observing an action as when performing it.
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Terminal button
The end of an axon (long, fiber-like extension) of a nerve cell is called a terminal bouton if it is the presynaptic part of a synapse. The terminal bouton is a spherical thickening containing vesicles (small sacs) that store neurotransmitters (chemical messengers in the brain).
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Endorphins
Abbreviation for endogenous morphines, i.e., morphines produced by the body itself. They play an important role in suppressing and alleviating pain. They are also involved in euphoria (feelings of elation).
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Engram
An engram, also known as a memory trace, is a neural representation of memory content. It is believed that learning processes are based on structural changes in the synaptic connections between neurons.
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- Glossary
Epigenetics
Biologists use the term "epigenetics" to describe all processes that influence the genetic activity of an organism without changing the sequence of DNA building blocks. This occurs, for example, when the cell chemically modifies certain sections of the genetic material, thereby permanently or temporarily deactivating them. For example, although women have two X chromosomes in every cell of their body, one of them is so tightly packed that it does not become active.
