defasciculate

Verb

defasciculate (third-person singular simple present defasciculates, present participle defasciculating, simple past and past participle defasciculated)

1. (intransitive) Of an axon, to separate from a fascicle.
   • The second is called "parallel bypass" where SNb defasciculates but continues to parallel the ISN. The third is termed the "stall" where SNb defasciculates and stops on its way to the muscle field.2001, Huidy Shu, A molecular genetic analysis of axon guidance in Drosophila melanogaster: signal transduction and receptor diversity
   • In Slit2 mutant mice, motor nerves prematurely defasciculate into smaller bundlers in various muscles, unlike those in wild type that stay in compact fascicle until they reach the middle of muscle fibers.2015, Haitao Wu et al., “Slit2 as a β-catenin/Ctnnb1-dependent retrograde signal for presynaptic differentiation”, in eLife, volume 4, →DOI