The Word That Wasn’t There

We have ‘dopaminergic’ for neurons that release dopamine—so why is there no equivalent word for neurons that receive it? A proposal to generalize the ‘-ceptive’ suffix.

I was writing about serotonin-receiving neurons and reached for “serotonoceptive.” The word should exist, but it doesn’t.

We have “dopaminergic” for neurons that release dopamine, so why no equivalent for neurons that receive it? Instead, the literature is full of workarounds: “dopamine-sensitive neurons,” “neurons expressing dopamine receptors,” “dopamine target cells.”

A solution was hiding in plain sight: “nociceptive” and “proprioceptive” have been around since Sherrington. Recent papers already use “GABAceptive” and “dopaminoceptive.”

So I wrote a short paper proposing we generalize the ‘-ceptive’ suffix. Dopaminergic neurons release dopamine; dopaminoceptive neurons receive it. Simple, systematic, and searchable.

Read the editorial here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18373728