Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Carrying inward to a central organ or section, as nerves that conduct impulses from the periphery of the body to the brain or spinal cord.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Bringing; carrying to or toward; conveying inward.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Physiol.) Bearing or conducting inwards to a part or organ; -- opposed to
efferent
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Carrying
towards . - noun An afferent structure or connection
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of nerves and nerve impulses; conveying sensory information from the sense organs to the CNS
- noun a nerve that passes impulses from receptors toward or to the central nervous system
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Thus: a given inhibitory tetanus exerted on a certain set of motoneurones fails to prevent their excitation in response to strong stimulation of a given afferent nerve; but when the stimulation of the excitatory afferent is weaker the given standard inhibitory tetanus does prevent the response of the motor neurones to the excitatory stimulation.
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The fibres which come ultimately from the dorsal aspect of the spinal marrow are those which carry inwards the effect of a stimulus applied towards their ultimate termination, and are therefore called afferent, or sensory.
The Common Frog 1874
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According to their function, the former set have been called afferent, as conveying impressions towards the centre; the latter efferent, as conveying the respondent movement from the centre.
Theism: The Witness of Reason and Nature to an All-Wise and Beneficent Creator. 1823-1886 1855
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Title: A novel role for TRPM8 in visceral afferent function
Finding the Pathways to a Cause of Tinnitus Ann Lukits 2011
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The autonomic nervous system is divided into interacting and balancing systems, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and the visceral afferent system.
SO STRESSED William Kent Krueger 2010
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A feedback network of nerves, known as the visceral afferent system, allows the brain to carefully monitor the effects this stimulation has on critical parts of the body.
SO STRESSED William Kent Krueger 2010
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The autonomic nervous system is divided into interacting and balancing systems, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and the visceral afferent system.
SO STRESSED William Kent Krueger 2010
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A feedback network of nerves, known as the visceral afferent system, allows the brain to carefully monitor the effects this stimulation has on critical parts of the body.
SO STRESSED William Kent Krueger 2010
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Whatever the specifics, they wrote, the important thing is that the stimulation affected only “a few cubic millimeters of neural tissue,” which means that “the depression probably resulted from the stimulation of afferent, efferent, or passing fibers within the substantia nigra or from the inhibition of those fibers.”
MANUFACTURING DEPRESSION Gary Greenberg 2010
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Spencers Mom in reply to a comment from afferent input
Pundits And Writers Start Hitting McCain For Non-Stop P.O.W. References 2009
artoparts commented on the word afferent
See: efferent
October 31, 2008