Acetylcholine: The main neurotransmitter of the parasympathetic nervous system, 

Arrhythmia: Irregular heartbeat rhythm.

Ataxia: Without coordination. It can affect balance and movement. 

Autonomic Nervous System: regulates involuntary processes including heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, digestion, and sexual arousal. It can be divided into the sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric nervous systems.

Baroreceptors: Nerve receptors that sense and send signals of pressure on the blood vessel walls to the brain.  The signals loop between the brain and receptors keeping the body’s blood pressure balanced by raising or lowering it with vasodilation or vasoconstriction. 

Blood pressure: a number that represents two different pressures in the heart to explain how hard the heart is working.

Bradycardia: Under 60 heart beats per minute or slower than the normal heartbeat.

Bradykinesia: Slow movement.

Cardiovascular: Heart and/or blood vessels.

Central: Toward the middle, opposite of the ends.

Cerebellum: The smallest part of the brain. Controls muscle movement, coordination, and balance. Helps us understand language and memorize. 

Cerebrum: The largest part of the brain. Controls balance and speech.  It is where a person’s personality is stored and chooses our behaviors.  It controls the 5 senses we use and our ability to learn and problem solve. 

Cognitive: referring to cognition, or mental processing

Diaphoresis: A large abnormal amount of sweating.

Diastolic: the bottom or lower number when taking a blood or pulse pressure, it measures the amount of pressure between beats when the heart is at rest.

Dopamine: One of the three catecholamines, it can function as a neurotransmitter or hormone, get converted to norepinephrine, and works as a reward system to us.  It makes people feel good when released. It plays a minor role in the sympathetic nervous system when a threat is perceived. 

Dysautonomia: dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system

Dysphagia: Swallowing difficulties.

Dyspnea (Shortness of Breath): Feeling like you can’t get enough air into your system, air hunger, feeling of tight lungs that can’t expand to get enough oxygen.

Enteric Nervous System: Facilitates digestion through secretion of digestive hormones and movement of substances through the gastrointestinal tract.

Epinephrine: One of the three catecholamine hormones that is also known as adrenaline, a hormone and a neurotransmitter that is a part of the sympathetic nervous system response to acute stress or the “fight or flight” reaction. Its primary function is to increase heart rate.  It is made from norepinephrine.  It is released into the system as needed when there is a stressor.  It can be used throughout the body’s organs to deliver more oxygen.

Fatigue: Feeling extremely tired mentally or physically. 

Gastrointestinal: Related to or affecting the stomach and intestines, or the stomach and intestines themselves.

Genitourinary: The organs used for urination and reproduction. 

Heart rate: the speed the heart beats.

Histamine: A chemical released by mast-cells to help the body fight a threat.  Main ways it signals the body to attack the threat is by calling for white blood cells or digestion to start. If the body becomes unbalanced it signals the body to attack healthy parts causing tissues to break down. It is a main cause of inflammation in the body. 

Homeostasis: The balance and harmony between the bodies systems. 

Hypertension: High blood pressure

Hypotension: Low blood pressure

Idiopathic: Unknown.

Malaise: A broad description of feeling unwell. 

Mast cells: Cells that are found throughout the entire body used to balance the immune system. They release histamines and inflammation is caused when a threat to the body is perceived. An imbalance of the amount of function of them can cause an imbalance in the immune system to attack too much or too little. 

Miosis: Abnormal constriction of the pupil.

Mydriasis: Abnormal dilation of the pupil.

Myelin: Protective and insulating layer of some nerve fibers. It helps cells send signals quickly and is located on the cell’s axons. 

Narrow pulse pressure: When the pulse pressure is 25% or less than the systolic pressure.

Neurodegenerative: Breakdown or destruction of the nervous system. 

Neuropathy: Damage to the nerves. Can be acquired if it came from a physical injury, disease, or disorder.  They may also be genetic and formed before birth and a result of a problem with the person’s DNA.   

Norepinephrine: One of the three catecholamine hormones that is also known as noradrenaline, a hormone and a neurotransmitter that is a part of the sympathetic nervous system response to acute stress or the “fight or flight” reaction.  It constricts blood vessels to increase blood pressure.  It is converted from dopamine and produces epinephrine. It is continuously in the bloodstream.

Orthostatic: Standing up

Palpitations: A brief irregular heartbeat caused by a misfired or missed electrical signal to the heart. Can be a sign of a heart arrhythmia. 

Parasympathetic Nervous System: “rest and digest”. It will slow the heart rate and blood pressure, speed up digestion, increase tear production, saliva production, and urination, constrict the pupils, and activate the immune system.

Presyncope: The feeling before fainting including dizzy, lightheaded, and blacking out visually. 

Pulmonary: Affecting the lungs.

Pulse pressure: a measurement of the amount of pressure change between a heart beating and at rest. It is calculated by subtraction the diastolic from the systolic pressure.

Referred Pain: Pain that is not at the location of the source due to the nervous system having many pain receptors on a single nerve path that runs throughout different parts of the body.

Renal: Related to or affecting the kidneys, or the kidneys themselves.

Stroke volume:  The amount of blood the heart pushes through in a single beat.

Sympathetic Nervous System: “Fight or flight”. It will increase heart rate and blood pressure, slow digestion, increase sweating, dilate pupils, decrease salivation, stop urination, and suppress the immune system.

Synapse: The junction where two cells send a signal to each other.

Syncope: Fainting

Systolic: the top or higher number when taking a blood or pulse pressure, it measures the amount of pressure when the heart beats.

Tachycardia: Over 100 heart beats per minute at rest or faster than the normal heartbeat.

Vasoconstriction: The act of the blood vessels narrowing.

Vasodilation: The act of the blood vessels widening.

Wide Pulse Pressure:  When the pulse pressure rises above 40.