innervation
(ɪnəˈveɪʃən)
[f. as prec. + -ation; cf. enervation, and mod. F. innervation (1878 in Dict. Acad.).]
1. Physiol. The action or process of innervating; the fact of being innervated; supply of nerve-force from a nerve-centre to some organ or part by means of nerves; stimulation of some organ by its nerves. Also, the supply of nerve fibres to, or disposition of nerve fibres within, an organ or part.
| 1832 J. Thomson Life W. Cullen I. 430 The doctrine of Innervation or the Influence of the Nervous System. 1847 tr. Feuchtersleben's Med. Psychol. 115 The organic process occasioned by this innervation as it is called..is worthy of observation. 1861 Van Evrie Negroes 165 His imperfect innervation, his sluggish brain. 1878 Holbrook Hyg. Brain 16 The medulla is a source of innervation for the heart. 1879 Jrnl. Physiol. II. 342 More recently Severini, in his able monograph on the innervation of the blood-vessels, has laid great weight on the contractility of the capillaries. 1908 Westm. Gaz. 8 July 2/1 It has been found that the density of the cutaneous innervation—i.e., the number of sensitive nerve terminations in the unit of surface—is greater in small animals than in large. 1910 Jrnl. R. Microsc. Soc. 154 Innervation of tympanum.—Agostino Gemelli describes..the tympanal ramifications (1) of the auriculo-temporal branch of the trigeminal, and (2) of the nerve of Jacobson. 1945 Amer. Jrnl. Physiol. CXLIV. 477 It is tacitly assumed that if part of the innervation of a muscle is permanently destroyed, the remaining motor units..continue their normal function. 1967 Gardner & Osburn Struct. Human Body iv. 121/2 The nerve supply to a muscle is referred to as its innervation. |
2. Psychol. = kinæsthesis.
| 1880 W. James in Anniversary Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. 4 Wundt..adopts the term Innervationsgefühl to designate the former [sc. the feeling of force exerted] in relation to its supposed cause, the efferent discharge. Feelings of innervation have since then become household words in psychological literature. 1898 G. F. Stout Man. Psychol. I. ii. vi. 192 According to Bain, there is a direct sense of energy put forth which is independent of any results the putting forth of energy may produce. This peculiar modification of sensory consciousness has been called the sense of effort, or the innervation-sense. 1904 E. B. Titchener tr. Wundt's Princ. Physiol. Psychol. iii. 57 (heading) General principles and problems of a mechanics of innervation. 1924 J. Riviere et al. tr. Freud's Coll. Papers I. 63 The conversion may be either total or partial, and it proceeds along the line of the motor or sensory innervation that is more or less intimately related to the traumatic experience. 1953 Hinsie & Shatzky Psychiatric Dict. (ed. 2) 667/1 The expressive innervations are involuntary, even though they can be influenced, up to a point, by volition. |