neurally

Neurally is an adverb used to describe actions, processes, or phenomena that relate to the nervous system or neural activity. In scientific writing, it serves to attribute observations to neural mechanisms rather than to non-neural explanations. It is closely related to the adjective neural and to the adverb neuronally, but it carries a nuance that emphasizes neural activity or encoding at the level of neurons or neural circuits.

Etymology and usage: The term is formed from the stem neural plus the suffix -ly. It is most common in neuroscience, neurophysiology, and related disciplines. While neural is the standard adjective for describing things pertaining to nerves or the nervous system, neurally is used when the emphasis is on neural processes or activity. In some contexts, neuronally may be used to stress activity at the level of individual neurons, but neurally remains common for broader neural phenomena.

In research contexts, neurally is used to specify distinctions from non-neural explanations. For example, researchers may describe neurally encoded signals, neurally mediated responses, or neurally driven activity to indicate that the phenomena arise from neural processing rather than from peripheral or purely behavioral factors.

Limitations and style: Neurally is mostly found in formal scientific writing and is less common in everyday language. Writers are advised to choose terms carefully: neural as an adjective for general relations to the nervous system, and neurally or neuronally for adverbs indicating neural or neuronal processes, depending on the intended scope.

See also: neural, neuroscience, neurophysiology, neural network, neuron.