botox

botox A highly purified preparation of botulinum toxin A, a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. Botox is injected, in very small amounts, into specific muscles, as a treatment. It acts by blocking the transmission of nerve impulses to muscles and so paralyzes (relaxes) the muscles. Botox treatment has found a growing number of uses from easing muscle spasms (as, for example, in spastic cerebral palsy) to its increasingly widespread cosmetic use in flattening wrinkles.