decerebrateadj.
/diːˈsɛrɪbrət/ Deprived of the cerebrum; having the cerebrum removed or the brain-stem cut; also, resulting from this, as decerebrate rigidity, a state in which the limbs are extended and certain skeletal muscles rigidly contracted.
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the world > health and disease > healing > medical treatment > surgery > operations on specific parts or conditions > [adjective] > operations on the brain
decerebrate1897
stereotaxic1908
hypophysectomized1910
pinealectomized1912
stereotactic1954
1897 C. S. Sherrington in Proc. Royal Soc. 61 244 I have found the ‘long intra-spinal reflexes’, like sub-cerebral rigidity (‘decerebrate tonus’,) locally abolished..by total severance of the sensory spinal roots belonging to their own region of terminal discharge.
1898 C. S. Sherrington in Jrnl. Physiol. 22 319 In a communication to the Royal Society in 1896 I described under the name decerebrate rigidity a condition of long-maintained muscular contraction supervening on removal of the cerebral hemispheres.
1902 Encycl. Brit. XXXI. 744/1 The decerebrate monkey exhibits ‘cataleptoid’ reflexes. Father Kircher's experimentum mirabile with the fowl and the chalk line succeeds best with the decerebrate hen.
1927 J. B. S. Haldane & J. S. Huxley Animal Biol. vi. 139 A ‘decerebrate’ animal, i.e. one in which the cerebral hemispheres have been removed, though unconscious, can to some extent adjust its standing posture.
1950 Sci. News 15 19 An anaesthetised, or decerebrate animal.
1969 ‘M. Innes’ Family Affair xvii. 187 Oswyn's virtually decerebrate, of course.
Derivatives
decereˈbration n. removal of the cerebrum, cutting of the brain-stem.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > healing > medical treatment > surgery > operations on specific parts or conditions > [noun] > operations on the brain
decerebration1900
hypophysectomy1909
lobectomy1911
pinealectomy1915
lobotomy1936
leucotomy1937
tractotomy1938
thalamotomy1948
topectomy1948
gyrectomy1949
hemispherectomy1950
stereotaxy1959
lobotomization1974
1900 W. A. N. Dorland Amer. Illustr. Med. Dict. 192/2 Decerebration, the removal of the brain in performing craniotomy.
1915 W. Osler Let. 29 July in H. Cushing Life Sir W. Osler (1925) II. 484 It is a sort of psychical decerebration... I suppose it is the shock & strain.
1970 J. Crossland Lewis's Pharmacol. (ed. 4) ix. 181 Decerebration (which involves destruction of the brain above the level of the midbrain) releases this restraint and causes decerebrate rigidity.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1933; most recently modified version published online June 2018).
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adj.1897