Introduction: eponyms are a deeply rooted historical feature of medical nomenclature, especially in neuroanatomy. The term“eponym” comes from Greek and refers to a name used to designate a structure in honor of the person considered to have initially described it. The objective of this study was to review the presence of some eponyms in Terminologia Neuroanatomica whose name does not correspond to the person who first identified or described them
Materials and Methods: a detailed review of the Terminologia Neuroanatomica was conducted to identify designations attributed to individuals other than the original authors or to detect historical inaccuracies due to misattribution.
Results: we identified eight missatributed eponyms. Although some appear in the other column, these termsremain widely used in medical teaching and practice, including arachnoid, subarachnoid space, aqueduct of Sylvius, sulcus of Rolando, sulcus of Sylvius, Betz cell, Cajal-Retzius cell, and ganglion of Gasser.
Conclusion: other researchers mentioned or described these structures before the individuals to whom the eponyms are attributed. This work demosntrates that the assigment of eponyms often reflect factors external to sientific research, including the influence of students, collegues, or mistranslations. This practice, althoug intented to honor, sometimes makes the true describers invisible and hinders anatomical education based on morphological and functional criteria. Therefore, there is a need to review and update the Terminologia Neuroanatomica to more accuralety relfect scientific history and strengthen the rational teaching of morphology.