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Circadian
Circadian Fluctuating regularly on a time basis usually entrained to a metabolic, endocrine, neurochemical, light-dark, temperature, or seasonal cycle (see also diurnal, ultradian). There are very fast biorhythm cycles such as in the EEG and ECG, a 90-minute cycle seen in REM-NREM sleep or in waking attentive/alert-drowsy/inattentive swing, a twice daily body temperature peak and slump. a 24-hour ACTH cycle, a monthly menstrual cycle, and possibly longer seasonal cycles not yet thoroughly described.
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Endocrine
Pertaining to hormones and the glands that make and secrete them into the bloodstream through which they travel to affect distant organs. The endocrine sites include the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, pineal gland, thyroid, parathyroids, heart (which makes atrial-natriuretic peptide), the stomach and intestines, islets of Langerhans in the pancreas, the adrenal glands, the kidney (which makes renin, erythropoietin, and calcitriol), fat cells (which make leptin). the testes, the ovarian follicle (estrogens) and the corpus luteum in the ovary). Endocrine is as opposed to exocrine. (The exocrine glands include the salivary glands, sweat glands and glands within the gastrointestinal tract.)
Diurnal
Recurring daily, or in the daytime.
ECG
Electrocardiogram.
ACTH
Acth is a prescription or over-the-counter drug which is (or once was) legal in the United States and possibly in other countries. Active ingredient(s): corticotropin.
Menstrual
An endocrine cycle of 28 days in women which includes fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone, the events of enodmetrial development, follicular maturation, ovulation, changes in cervical mucus secretion, breast vascularization changes, and if pregnancy does not occur, menstruation.
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Circadian rhythm
Biological timing and rhythmicity that, in humans, is characterised by cycles of approximately 24 hours. Synonym: biological clock.
Circanol
Circanol is a prescription or over-the-counter drug which is (or once was) approved in the United States and possibly in other countries. Active ingredient(s): ergoloid mesylates.
Circle of Willis
An arterial circle at the base of the brain that is of critical importance. The circle of Willis receives all the blood that is pumped up the two internal carotid arteries that come up the front of the neck and that is pumped from the basilar artery formed by the union of the two vertebral arteries that come up the back of the neck. All the principal arteries that supply cerebral hemispheres of the brain branch off from the circle of Willis.
Circular breathing
Inhaling through the nose and inflating the cheeks and neck with air at the same time.Some saxophone players do circular breathing; this may not be a safe practice since it may reduce blood flow to the brain.
Circulation
The flow of blood through the body. Includes the heart, arteries, veins and capillaries.
Circulation, fetal
The blood circulation in the fetus (the unborn baby). Before birth, the blood from the heart that is destined (in the pulmonary artery) for the lungs is shunted away from the lungs and returned to the greatest of arteries (the aorta). The shunt is through a short vessel called the ductus arteriosus. When this shunt is open, it is said to be a patent (pronounced pá tent) ductus arteriosus (PDA). The PDA usually closes at or shortly after birth and blood is permitted to course freely to the lungs.
Circulatory
Having to do with the circulation, the movement of fluid in a regular or circuitous course. Although the adjective "circulatory" need not necessarily refer to the circulation of the blood, for all practical purposes today it does. A circulatory problem is taken usually to be a problem with the blood circulation, for example with heart failure.
Circulatory system
Pertaining to the heart and blood vessels, and the circulation of blood.
Circum-
Prefix meaning around, surrounding, or encircling. As in circumcision, circumflex, and circumjacent. From the Latin preposition circum meaning round.
Circumcision
The surgical removal of the sheath of skin (called a foreskin) that covers the head of the penis.
Circumflex
Curved like a bow. In anatomy, circumflex describes a structure that bends around like a bow. For example, the circumflex branch of the left coronary artery.
Circumscribed
Having a border, localized. Often associated with a capsule and benign tumors of the brain, for example, meningiomas, pituitary adenomas and acoustic neuromas. See diffuse.
Circumstantiality
Pattern of speech that is indirect and delayed in reaching its goal because of excessive or irrelevant detail or parenthetical remarks. The speaker does not lose the point, as is characteristic of loosening of associations, and clauses remain logically connected, but to the listener it seems that the end will never be reached.
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Chordee
Fixed curvature or tying down of the penis or hypertrophied clitoris as in the hypospadiac birth defect characteristic of various types of hermaphroditism.
Chrematistophilia
A paraphilia of the mercantile/venal type in which sexuoerotic arousal and facilitation or attainment of orgasm are responsive to, and contingent on being charged or forced to pay, or being robbed by the sexual partner for sexual services.
Chromosomal mosaicism
A chromosomal pattern in which some cells of the body have the standard number of chromosomes (46,XX or 46,XY), and others have more or less, as in 45,X/46,XY (a mosaic variety of Turner's syndrome); or 46,XY/47,XXY (a mosaic variety of Klinefelter's syndrome), and many others.
Chronophilia
One of a group of paraphilias of the stigmatic/eligibilic type in which the paraphile's sexuoerotic age is discordant with his/her actual chronological age and is concordant with the age of the partner, as in, respectively, infantilism or nepiophilia; juvenilism or pedophilia; adolescentilism or ephebophilia (Lolita syndrome); and gerontalism or gerontophilia.
Cherambault-Kandinsky Syndrome
A paraphilia of the solicitational/allurative stratagem; a sexuoerotic pathology in which a [person] male or female has a limerent fixation on someone unattainable, an unshakable and false conviction that his/her own life is totally under the control of the unattainable one, and that the unattainable one reciprocates his/her love, limerence or love-smitteness secretly if not openly.
Circadian
Climacteric
In women, the menopause; in men, the life changes that may or may not occur as the counterpart of the menopause in women.
Clitoris
The small, hooded organ (the clitoral glans) at the top of the cleft of the female vulva, which is the counterpart of the penis in the male [from Greek, kleitoris, clitoris]. Usually only the glans of the clitoris is externally visible. In the human female the body of the clitoris extends internally on either side of the vulva and vestibule. In total the clitoris is about 80 percent the size of the male penis.
Clitoromegaly
Extreme enlargement or hypertrophy of the clitoris.
Coital aninsertia
Inability in the female to have the penis inserted into the vagina, or in the male to insert the penis. It may be associated with neglect or denial of one's own penis or vagina (as in many unoperated transsexuals) or, more commonly, with phobic anxiety or panic and avoidance of penetration of one's own vagina, or of inserting one's own penis.
Coitus
The sexual act, specifically the taking of the penis into the vagina, or the penetrating of the vagina with the penis; but more generally the complete interaction between two sexual partners.
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