ATROPHY

Atrophy

Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body. Causes of atrophy include mutations, poor nourishment, poor circulation, loss of hormonal support, loss of nerve supply to the target organ, excessive amount of apoptosis of cells, and disuse or lack of exercise or disease intrinsic to the tissue itself. Hormonal and nerve inputs that maintain an organ or body part are referred to as trophic 1 in medical practice . Trophic describes the trophic condition of tissue. A diminished muscular trophic is designated as atrophy.

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atrophy

Noun

  1. A reduction in the functionality of an organ caused by disease, injury or lack of use.

Verb

  1. To wither or waste away.
  2. To cause to waste away or become abortive; to starve or weaken.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: atrophy
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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