| dominant idea | An idea that governs all one's actions and thoughts. (05 Mar 2000) |
|---|---|
| dominant inheritance | dominance of traits |
| dominant lethal trait | Trait, expressed in the phenotype if present in the genotype, that precludes having descendants. All such cases are necessarily sporadic and must represent new mutations as the usual methods of classical genetics provide no means of demonstrating any genetic component whatsoever, except for tenuous arguments such as advanced paternal age. Molecular biology may help although the methods may be tedious; if there is an epistatic gene that may mask the trait, the logic is more tractable, though complex. (05 Mar 2000) |
| dominant oncogene | <genetics, molecular biology, oncology> A gene that stimulates cell proliferation and can drastically increase the risk of cancer development when present in a single copy. (09 Oct 1997) |
| dominant species | <biology, ecology, zoology> For each stratum, dominant species are those that, when ranked in descending rank order and cumulatively totaled, immediately exceed 50 percent of the total dominance measure, plus any additional species comprising 20 percent or more of the total dominance measure for the stratum. (09 Oct 1997) |
| dominant trait | An outstanding mental or physical characteristic. See: dominance of traits. (05 Mar 2000) |
| affective personality disorder | A disturbance of feelings or mood expressed as a milder form of depression and related emotional features that colour the whole psychic life and for which psychosocial stressors are believed to play the major role. (05 Mar 2000) |
| alcohol amnestic disorder | <psychiatry> A mental disorder with brain damage characterised by amnesia, compensatory confabulation, disturbance of attention, and peripheral neuritis. It is usually associated with alcoholism and dietary deficiencies. (12 Dec 1998) |
| antisocial personality disorder | <psychiatry> An individual who engages in deviant behaviour with lack of remorse. (13 Jan 1998) |
| asthenic personality disorder | A personality type characterised by low energy level, easy fatigability, incapacity for enjoyment, lack of enthusiasm, and oversensitivity to physical and emotional stress. When appearing in marked form it becomes a psychological disorder (asthenic personality disorder), also called dependent personality. Synonym: asthenic personality disorder, dependent personality disorder. (05 Mar 2000) |
| attention deficit disorder | An inability to control behaviour due to difficulty in processing neural stimuli. (12 Dec 1998) |
| attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity | A behaviour disorder originating in childhood in which the essential features are signs of developmentally inappropriate inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Although most individuals have symptoms of both inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity, one or the other pattern may be predominant. The disorder is more frequent in males than females. Onset is in childhood. Symptoms often attenuate during late adolescence although a minority experience the full complement of symptoms into mid-adulthood. (12 Dec 1998) |
| attention deficit hyperactivity disorder | <psychiatry> A condition seen in children where there is increased motor activity in association with poor attention span. Often treated with amphetamine medications. (27 Sep 1997) |
| autistic disorder | autism, infantile autism |
| autonomic disorder | Disorganization of autonomic processes. (05 Mar 2000) |