scotophobin

[skoh-tuh-foh-bin]

noun

1. a peptide isolated from the brains of rats conditioned to avoid darkness, alleged to induce a dark-avoidance response in untrained rats, mice, and other animals.

Other Word Forms

• scotophobic adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of scotophobin¹

First recorded in 1965–70; scotophob(ia) ( def. ) + -in ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

His name for it: scotophobin, from the Greek words for "darkness" and "fear."

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To check his conclusion, Ungar asked Wolfgang Parr, a University of Houston chemist, to duplicate scotophobin using only off-the-shelf chemicals.

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Finally, he narrowed the search to a single peptide�consisting of a sequence of 15 amino acids�that he named scotophobin, from the Greek words for dark and fear.

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