hydantoin

n. any of a group of drugs developed primarily to control epileptic seizures. They were introduced in 1938 after careful studies of chemicals capable of suppressing electroshock convulsions without also causing adverse effects on the central nervous system. Hydantoin molecules are similar in structure to barbiturates but have the advantage of not altering the threshold for minimal seizures. The prototype of the hydantoins is phenytoin (previously called diphenylhydantoin). Other hydantoins include mephenytoin (U.S. trade name: Mesantoin) and ethotoin (U.S. trade name: Peganone), but these are rarely used.

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Psychology term of the day

November 22nd 2024

agreement

n. in linguistics, the correct relation between the different grammatical elements of a sentence, so that, for example, the number of the verb corresponds to that of its subject, and the number and gender of a pronoun correspond to those of its noun.