Intellectual studying anatomy, audaciously clutching needle, experimenting with the optic nerve, primarily? (5,6)
I believe the answer is:
isaac newton
'intellectual' is the definition.
(Isaac Newton is an example)
'clutching needle experimenting with the optic nerve primarily?' is the wordplay.
'clutching' becomes 'isaac' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'primarily?' says to take the initial letters (I've seen 'primarily' mean this).
The first letters of 'needle experimenting with the optic nerve' is 'newton'.
'isaac'+'newton'='ISAAC NEWTON'
'studying anatomy audaciously' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for isaac newton that I've seen before include "Lawmaker" , "Laws of Motion man" , "English mathematician and physicist" , "Seventeenth to eighteenth century English physicist/mathematician" , "noted scientist" .)