circumventricular organs

four small structures located along the third and fourth ventricles at the base of the brain, outside the blood–brain barrier, that are believed to influence body fluid homeostasis, thirst, vomiting, and other physiological functions. Also called circumventricular system. See also area postrema; organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis; subcommissural organ; subfornical organ.

Browse dictionary by letter

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Psychology term of the day

January 14th 2025

Kruskal–Shepard scaling

Kruskal–Shepard scaling

a type of multidimensional scaling applied to judgments of similarity or dissimilarity for pairs of items (e.g., cities). The dissimilarities are represented by distances between items in a highly dimensional space: Larger distances indicate greater dissimilarity. [William Henry Kruskal (1919–2005), U.S. statistician; Roger N. Shepard (1929– ), U.S. experimental and cognitive psychologist]