Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A deep, narrow furrow or groove, as in an organ or tissue.
  • noun Any of the narrow fissures separating adjacent convolutions of the brain.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A furrow or groove; a more or less linear or narrow and shallow depression; specifically, in anatomy, a fissure between two gyri or convolutions of the surface of the brain: used with English or Latin context. See phrases under fissure, and cuts under brain, cerebral, and gyrus.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A furrow; a groove; a fissure.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun anatomy a furrow or groove in an organ or a tissue
  • noun anatomy any of the grooves that mark the convolutions of the surface of the brain
  • noun planetology subparallel grooves and ditches formed by geological processes

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (anatomy) any of the narrow grooves in an organ or tissue especially those that mark the convolutions on the surface of the brain

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin

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Examples

  • The superior temporal sulcus is involved in processing very basic behavioural actions, whereas the prefrontal cortex is involved in more complex functions such as processing how decisions affect others.

    - Boing Boing 2006

  • Moreover, each lateral wall exhibits a division into a dorsal or alar and a ventral or basal lamina separated internally by a furrow termed the sulcus of Monro.

    IX. Neurology. 2. Development of the Nervous System 1918

  • She was later diagnosed with a rare condition, known as sulcus vocalis.

    WalesOnline - Home 2011

  • As in, "The transverse occipital sulcus intersects the intraparietal sulcus near the level of the parieto-occipital fissure" and "The Sahara is in Afghanistan, I think." ...

    Boing Boing 2009

  • They identified three brain regions in which grey matter density was greatest in those with the most Facebook friends, but was not linked to the number of real-world friends they had: the superior temporal sulcus and the middle temporal gyrus, which have previously been associated with the ability to perceive social cues from facial expressions, and the entorhinal cortex, which is linked to memory for things like faces and names.

    Facebook friend tally is associated with differences in brain structure 2011

  • Yet this is starkly contradicted by a seminal study in 2000, in which Pascal Belin found that a region of the brain the upper bank of the superior temporal sulcus responds selectively to sounds made by humans, such as speech, laughs, cries and sighs, but not to environmental sounds or the sounds of nature.

    A Sound Check For the Ages Daniel J. Levitin 2011

  • In her estimation, experts misinterpreted some of the intricate crevices and lumps on this brain cast, leading to the mistaken assumption that a feature called the lunate sulcus was in a position similar to ours, when the lunate sulcus was actually in a position more similar to nonhuman apes.

    Bones That Tell a Tale Brian Switek 2011

  • In one section, Ms. Falk declares: "Dart had mistakenly identified the lambdoid suture of the skull that had been imprinted on Taung's endocast as the lunate sulcus!"

    Bones That Tell a Tale Brian Switek 2011

  • The posterior cingulate cortex and superior temporal sulcus were larger in people who identified themselves as having many characteristics associated with agreeableness.

    SCIENCE NEWS 2010

  • Fourth degree tear, sulcus tears inside, stitches opened up less than a week after the birth.

    Mary Shelley Had NO IDEA | Her Bad Mother 2008

Comments

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  • "Scum plus crud plugs up ducts; thus Ubu must flush such sulcus ruts."

    Eunoia by Christian Bök (upgraded edition), p 78

    May 22, 2010