#blindness
- Mental ablepsia — An abstract concept used in philosophy and social psychology to denote mental blindness, lack of discernment, the total inability to perceive or understand an obvious truth or factual reality; a state of profound intellectual obtuseness caused by dogmatism or prejudice. Unlike ignorance, the term emphasizes a self-induced or systemic cognitive blockage that prevents critical reflection.
- Achromatic — An optical system or lens specially corrected to minimize chromatic aberration, allowing light rays of different colors to focus at the same point; in a medical sense, an individual affected by achromatopsia, characterized by the complete lack of color perception, seeing the world only in shades of gray, white, and black.
- Achromatism — The property of an optical system to transmit or reflect light without producing chromatic aberrations, allowing the formation of a sharp image without fringing. In a medical or biological context, the term refers to the total absence of colored pigments in a tissue or anatomical structure, or a visual anomaly where the subject perceives the world exclusively in shades of white, black, and gray.
- Achromatopsic person — A person affected by achromatopsia, suffering from a total visual anomaly characterized by the congenital or acquired inability to distinguish colors, perceiving the environment exclusively in shades of white, black, and gray. As an adjective, the term describes an individual, an eye, or a visual system exhibiting this severe and rare form of total color blindness.
- Achromatopsic woman — The feminine form of the word 'acromatop'; it designates a woman or a girl suffering from achromatopsia, lacking the ability to perceive the chromatic spectrum. As an adjective, it agrees in gender and number with feminine nouns, describing an anatomical structure, a person, or a retina lacking the pigments required for color vision.
- Achromatopsic — Suffering from achromatopsia; characterized by the total inability to perceive and distinguish the colors of the visible spectrum, with the world being perceived exclusively in shades of gray, white, and black. As a noun, it designates a male individual diagnosed with this rare congenital condition, caused by a severe structural dysfunction of the cone photoreceptor cells in the retina.
- Achromatopsic female — The feminine form of the word 'acromatopsic'; it describes a female individual, an anatomical structure, or a clinical manifestation characterized by the loss or complete absence of color sensitivity. In a genetic context, identifying an achromatopsic woman usually indicates an autosomal recessive transmission of mutant CNGA3 or CNGB3 genes.
- Achromatopsia — A congenital or acquired ophthalmological condition, genetic or neurological in nature, characterized by the total inability to perceive the colors of the visible spectrum. The affected subject distinguishes only shades of white, black, and gray (monochromatic vision), a state often accompanied by reduced visual acuity, extreme sensitivity to light (photophobia), and involuntary eye movements (nystagmus).
- Alexic — Pertaining to alexia, belonging to alexia, or affected by this neurological disorder; a person who has lost the ability to read and decode written language due to a cortical brain lesion. In medical semiology, the term characterizes the cognitive behavior or specific deficits within a complex aphasic syndrome, where the recognition of symbolic graphic signs is completely compromised.
- Alexia — A severe neurological disorder characterized by the total or partial loss of the ability to read and comprehend written language, caused by an acquired lesion in the brain structures involved in visual-linguistic processing (specifically in the left parietal or occipital lobe). Unlike illiteracy, the condition occurs in individuals who previously possessed the ability to read, and unlike dyslexia, it is an acquired condition rather than a developmental disorder.
- The alexias — The definite articulated feminine plural form of the noun alexia, designating collectively and specifically all the types, manifestations, or identified clinical cases of loss of the ability to read and comprehend written text due to a cortical brain lesion. In medical literature, the term individualizes the forms of word blindness studied within a specific patient group or nosological framework.
- Alexia — An extremely rare specialized medical term used to describe the pathological inability or severe difficulty to read or understand written text, often conceptually correlated with alexia or agraphia; by extension, in some old psychopathology papers, the term indicates a focal neurological disorder resulting from a brain lesion in the left parietal or occipital lobe, affecting the symbolic processing of graphic signs without altering visual acuity.
- Amauro- — A scientific combining form (prefixoid) extracted from ancient Greek (amauros - dark, obscure, blind), used in international medical and biological terminology to create words pertaining to total or partial loss of vision, darkness, blindness, or optic nerve disorders.
- Amaurotic — Pertaining to or affected with amaurosis; characterized by total or partial loss of vision without apparent external structural lesions of the eye, caused by disorders of the retina, optic nerve, or brain. Clinically, it describes symptoms or degenerative states linked to neurological blindness.
- Amaurosis — Complete loss of vision (blindness), temporary or permanent, occurring in one or both eyes, without apparent external structural lesions of the eye. Structurally, this serious clinical condition is caused by disorders affecting the retina, optic nerve, or cranial visual pathways.
- Anopsia — A severe visual impairment or total or partial loss of vision, caused either by a structural lesion of the cerebral optical pathways or by the functional non-use of the eye during early development (as seen in strabismic amblyopia). In neurological semiology, the term describes well-defined visual field defects, such as hemianopsias or quadrantanopsias, resulting from the alteration of nerve impulse conduction to the visual cortex.
- Astrezie — An extremely rare medical term, sometimes used in older neurological semiology or as a rare clinical jargon variant to describe a severe form of astreopsia (the structural pathological inability to perceive object movement in three-dimensional space or the lack of stereoscopic vision). This complex visual-perceptual dysfunction is caused by bilateral cortical lesions in the secondary visual area, severely affecting the patient's spatial orientation.