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Capture

catching and holding a particle or an electrical impulse originating elsewhere.

Origin: L. Capio, pp. -tus, to take, seise

atrial capture, control of the atria for one or more beats after a period of independent beating, as in complete a-v block or in junctional or ventricular ectopic beats or tachycardias by a retrograde impulse.

electron capture, a mode of radioactive disintegration, in which an orbital electron, usually from the k shell, is captured by the nucleus, converting a proton into a neutron with ejection of a neutrino and emission of a gamma ray, and emission of characteristic x-rays as the missing k-shell electron is replaced.

Synonym: k capture.