neuronn.

1883 B. T. Lowne in Proc. Royal Soc. 35 141 Beneath the Dioptron is a nervous structure of great complexity; this I have named the Neuron. The neuron consists of a Retina, an Optic Nerve, and an Optic Ganglion.

1884 B. G. Wilder in N.Y. Med. Jrnl. 2 Aug. 114/1 Neuron.—The mesal nervous axis, myelencephalon, or axis cerebro-spinalis, lying dorsal of the axon.

1900 B. G. Wilder in Science 11 420 (title) Is neuron available as a designation of the central nervous system?

1891 Brain 14 569 Thus a nerve element, a nerve entity, or ‘neuron’, as I propose to call it, consists..of the following pieces:—(a) a nerve cell, (b) the nerve process, (c) its collaterals, and (d) the end-branching.

1896 19th Cent. Aug. 258 The microscopical units of which the nervous system is built up—the so-called ‘neurons’, whose protoplasmic ramifications intimately penetrate into the tissues.

1896 L. F. Barker in Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull. 7 201/1 Van Gehuchten has adopted Waldeyer's word, spelling it in French ‘le neurone’... The question arises, how is Waldeyer's form to be anglicized? Would it be justifiable to bring it into English through the French and to spell it neurone, pronounced neurōne, or could it be brought into English directly from the Greek and be so spelled and pronounced?

1897 Med. Chron. 7 234 We notice that Mr. Schäfer uses the word ‘neuron’ in a somewhat different sense from that applied to it by Waldeyer, who used it—and we believe that in his sense it is extensively, if not universally, used—to denote a nerve cell with all its processes.

1904 E. B. Titchener tr. W. M. Wundt Princ. Physiol. Psychol. I. vi. 326 This spatial connexion may..consist either in the immediate proximity of neurones lying upon the same side of the brain, or in the union of distant areas by association fibres.

1939 W. E. Le Gros Clark Tissues of Body xii. 294 Within the central nervous system impulses are conducted from one part to another along a chain of neurones.

1950 A. Huxley Themes & Variations i. 94 The gulf between thought..and..neurones and electric charges is just as wide as that which in Biran's day divided thought from fluids and fibres.

1971 J. Z. Young Introd. Study Man xxii. 296 Neurons are probably lost steadily in the later decades of life.

1973 H. M. Ráliš et al. Techniques Neurohistol. i. 16 The nerve cell can make contact with a large number of other neurones through the multiple branches of dendrites.

1983 D. Stafford-Clark & A. C. Smith Psychiatry for Students (ed. 6) iii. 39 When the baby is asleep, the majority of neurons appear to be undergoing a synchronous pulsation.

1993 Guardian 12 Oct. (Educ. section) 16/3 In Alzheimer's disease the senile plaques interfere with the transmission of the signal from one neurone to another.

1893 E. A. Schäfer in Brain 16 136 I propose therefore to term the axis-cylinder or nerve-fibre processes neurons.

1896 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. I. 181 Golgi has shewn that every nerve-cell possesses one process, the ‘neuron’ which becomes the axis cylinder process of a nerve.

1897 Med. Chron. 7 234 We notice that Mr. Schäfer uses the word ‘neuron’ in a somewhat different sense from that applied to it by Waldeyer, who used it—and we believe that in his sense it is extensively, if not universally, used—to denote a nerve cell with all its processes. Mr. Schäfer uses it to designate the axis-cylinder process of a nerve cell.

1930 H. Hartridge & F. Haynes Histol. 114 Nerve processes are of two kinds, long and short. The long are called axons, axis cylinders,..and neurons.

1943 Bull. Math. Biophysics 5 118 We shall denote..that a neuron c_i fires at a time which is that number of synaptic delays from the origin of time by ‘N’ with the numeral i as subscript.

1956 J. T. Culbertson in C. E. Shannon & J. McCarthy Automata Stud. 99 Our neurons are modeled in certain respects after biological neurons but are defined so as to have simpler and more uniform properties.

1976 K. N. Leibovii in J. Belzer et al. Encycl. Computer Sci. & Technol. IV. 24 Many of these models make use of the McCulloch-Pitts ‘neuron’ [which]..is a drastic simplification of the real neuron.

1992 Economist 26 Dec. 116/1 The way an artificial network learns by varying the strength of the connections between its silicon neurons is..reminiscent of the way neurologists think that learning happens in what their computing colleagues disparagingly refer to as ‘wetware’.

2000 Wired Feb. 68/2 Berger and Liaw employed a dynamic network of chips called neurons. Rather than being programmed, these neural nets ‘learn’ to perform tasks.

1893 Science 30 June 351/1 What Schwann did for biology at large by means of the cell theory, Professor His has done for neurology through his theory of the neuroblast and its supplement, the ‘neuron theory’.

1897 Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic 11 Dec. 565/1 (heading) The histological basis of the neuron theory.

1939 W. E. Le Gros Clark Tissues of Body xii. 320 At one time the neurone theory excited considerable controversy, and even to-day some anatomists question its validity.

1995 Q. Rev. Biol. 70 243/2 The book contains five chapters, each dealing with one of the major issues addressed: Brain Models, Neuroreductionism, Neuron Theory, Hero Worship, Ethics.