What can you find in the Alzheimers Dictionary?

The Alzheimers Dictionary is the bridge that connects all those affected and related to Alzheimers and dementias with the terms, concepts and expressions that are part of this field. To understand them is to better understand what we are dealing with. A living and constantly growing space, which will evolve with new terms and expressions with your help, responding to your needs and demands. This is a tool that is in no way intended to replace conversations with specialised doctors. For family members and informal carers, it can be a link to a world of which they are unfamiliar with the technicalities. Shedding light, accompanying them on a difficult path in which knowledge helps to make better decisions and improve the quality of life of patients and relatives.
This project has been carried out by a team of philologists and lexicographers from several universities and research centres who have previously worked on different research projects focusing on the field of specialised lexicography, particularly medical lexicography. These projects, like this one, have been directed by Professor Bertha M. Gutiérrez Rodilla, from the University of Salamanca (Spain), who has been dedicated for more than twenty years to the diachronic and synchronic study of scientific language and medical language and is renowned for her publications in this field.

neurotransmisor

English
neurotransmitter
Etymology

De neuro-, tema del griego científico que alude al sistema nervioso, y transmisor.

Explanation

Un neurotransmisor hace de mensajero entre una neurona y otra. La información que transmite regula la actividad cerebral y controla el funcionamiento cognitivo, las emociones, el estado de ánimo o el sueño. Los neurotransmisores más conocidos son la adrenalina, la dopamina y la endorfina. Uno de ellos, la acetilcolina, es la que recibe la atención de la investigación sobre el alzhéimer, pues su déficit es una de las alteraciones características de la enfermedad.

Examples

«Los científicos han descubierto que las personas con enfermedad de Alzheimer sufren deficiencias de varios neurotransmisores, particularmente de acetilcolina. […] Si se encontrara una forma de aumentar los niveles de acetilcolina y de los otros neurotransmisores deficientes, podrían aliviarse los síntomas del mal de Alzheimer» (Mace y Rabins, 1999: 330).

«Si hay poco cerebro, pocas neuronas y pocas sinapsis es lógico que escaseen los neurotransmisores, esas sustancias que producen las neuronas. Al perder neurotransmisores y sinapsis, las neuronas no pueden comunicarse. Entonces se trastorna su metabolismo, crea productos anormales (como la proteína tau que degenera y forma “ovillos”) y al final la célula muere» (González Maldonado, 2000: 42).

Sustancia química que transmite los impulsos nerviosos de las células.