Applied Neuroscience Flashcards
Name some frontal tests
Similarities Lexical fluency Luria motor test Go/on go test Cognitive estimates test Trail making test Alternative pyramids Proverb interpretation Frontal release signs Digit span
What is the similarities test?
Comparing two objects to test the ability of categorisation and not a description of common parts.
This tests abstract ability.
What does the similarities test.. test?
Frontal lobe
Abstract ability
What is the lexical fluency test?
Naming items such as animals - category fluency or
generation of words starting with letters FAS (word fluency).
What does lexical fluency test?
Speed and accuracy
Ability to shift from one set of objects to the next
Frontal lobe
What is the luria motor test?
Fist palm edge.
What does Luria motor test.. test?
Motor planning
Exectition
Error correction
Frontal lobe
What does the go/on go test.. test?
Response inhibition
Absence of perseveration
Resistance to interference
What is the cognitive estimates test?
E.g. How tall is an average English woman?
Uses questions that need abstract not mere factual thinking.
Give examples of tests that test abstract ability
Similarities Test
Cognitive estimates test
What is the trail making test?
Firstly, simple number sequence used to join dots.
Secondly, use alternating numbers and letters - more sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction.
What does trail making test?
Frontal lobe Visuomotor tracing Attention Conceptualisation Set shifitng
Name some parietal tests
Copying shapes Identifying fingers Calculation ability Graphesthesia Right Left orientation Stereognosis Two point discrimination Visual inattention
Describe the copying shapes test.
Ability to draw shapes and construct geometrical patterns.
Describe the identifying fingers test.
Test the ability to recognise the touched finger when eyes are closed.
Test ability to correctly show ones index, middle and ring fingers.
Interlocking fingers test - ability to copy examiners interlocking fingers.
What does identifying fingers test.. test?
Dominane parietal damage causes finger agnosia as part of Gerstmann syndrome.
What is the calculation ability test?
Tests simple mathematical function.
What if often intact in calculation ability even if parietal dysfunction?
Recognition and use of numbers - arithmetic ability.
What does calculation ability test.. test?
Dominant parietal damage can cause acalculia as part of Gerstmann syndrome.
Describe Right left orientation test
Test for ability to touch right ear lobe with left index finger when eyes closed.
What does Right left orientation test.. test?
Dominant parietal damage can cause right-left disorientation as part of Gerstmann syndrome.
What is the stereognosis test?
Ability to recognise objects by palpation, without visual inspection.
What does stereognosis test?
Bilateral parietal function - somatosensory cortices.
What does the two point discrimination test.. test?
Cortical sensation
Bilateral somatosensory cortical function
Describe the visual inattention test
Letter or star cancellation task
Line bisection test
Draw a person/tree tasks
What are you looking for in the visual inattention test?
Hemineglect - feature of parietal lesions.
Signs and symptoms of unilateral front lobe lesion
Contralateral spastic hemiplegia
Elevation of mood, increased talkativeness, tendency to joke inappropriately (Witzelsuch)
Frontal release signs (grap/suck reflexes)
Anosmia
Signs and symptoms of left frontal lobe lesion
Motor speech disorder with agraphia with or without oro-buccal apraxia
Loss of verbal fluency with persevaration
Signs and symptoms of bilateral frontal lobe lesions
Bilateral hemiplegia
Spastic bulbar palsy
Abulia (indecisiveness, lack of drive)
Decomposition of gait and sphincter incontinence
Combination of grasping, sucking, obligate imitative movements, ulitization behaviour
Specific frontal syndromes?
Pseudo depressive
Dysexecutive
Pseudo psychopathic
What is a gelastic seizure?
Epileptic fit of incessant laughter, from left prefrontal seizure
Signs and symptoms of unilateral parietal lobe lesion
Corticosensory syndrome and sensory extinction
Mild hemiparesis
Homonymous hemianopia or inferior quadrantanopia
Sign of right parietal lobe lesion
Neglect of opposite side of external space
Sign of left parietal lobe lesion
Gerstmann syndrome
What is Gerstmann syndrome?
Dysgraphia
Dyscalculia
Finger agnosia
Right-left confusion
What causes Gerstmann syndrome?
Lesion in left parietal lobe
Signs and symptoms of bilateral parietal lobe lesions
Spatial disorientation and visual spatial defects
Bilateral ideomotor and ideational apraxia
Tactile agnosia
Balint syndrome
Signs of unilateral temporal lobe lesion
Homonymous upper quadrantanopia Wernickes aphasia Degrees of amusia and/or visual agnosia Dysnomia IMpairment auditory verbal learning
Signs of bilateral temporal lobe lesions
Hallucinations Dreamy states with uncinate seizures Emotional and behavioural changes Disturbance of time perception Korsakoff amnesic defect (hippocampaal formations) Apathy and placidity Hypermetamorphospia - compulsion to attend to all visual stimuli Kluver-Bucy syndrome
Signs of Kluver-Busy syndrome
Hyperorality
Hypersexuality
Blunted emotional reactivity
Where is the lesion in homonymous upper quadrantanopia?
Unilateral temporal lobe
What is Geschwind syndrome?
Personality change reported in all epilepsy patients.
Pathology underlying Geschwind syndrome?
Due to lost connectivity among cerebral areas.
Symptoms of Geschwind syndrome?
Hypergraphia Circumstantiality Interpersonal viscosity Hyperreligiosity Hyposexuality
What is the most common aura in epilepsy?
Autonomic
Give e.g. of autonomic auras
Salivation
Vertigo
What is a forced thinking aura?
Individual has a compulsion to think on a certain restricted topic
What is evocation of thought aura?
Intrusion of stereotyped words or thoughts
Name auras of temporal lobe epilepsy
Autonomic sensations Forced thinking Evocation of thought Sudden obstruction to thought flow Panoramic memory Psychic seizures Uncinate crises Transient dysphagia Strong affective experiences Dostoevsky's epilepsy
What is Doestoevsky’s epilepsy?
Temporal lobe aura - ecstatic content
Common emotions in strong affective experiences aura?
Fear and anxiety
What is the uncinate crises aura?
Hallucinations of taste and smell associated with dream like reminiscence and altered consciousness
What is psychic seizures aura?
Isolated auras with hallucinations, depersonalisations, micropsia or macropsia, deja vu/jamais vu
What is panoramic memory aura?
Recall of expansive memories in incredible detail
Signs of unilateral occipital lobe lesions
Contralateral homonymous hemianopia - central/peripheral
Elementary (unformed) hallucinations
Visual object agnosia
Visual illusions - metamorphosis and hallucinations
What are elementary hallucinations often due to?
Irritative unilateral occipital lobe lesions
Which sign is more common right right-sided occipital lobe lesion?
Visual hallucinations
Which signs are common in unilateral occipital lobe lesion involving deep white matter or splenium of corpus callosum?
Alexia
Color-naming defect
Signs of bilateral occipital lobe lesions
Cortical blindness (pupils reactive) Anton syndrome Achromatopsia - loss of perception of colour Prosopagnosia Simultanagnosia Balint syndrome
What is Anton syndrome?
Denial of cortical blindness
Visual anosognosia
What signs are more common in parieto-occipital lesions?
Simultanagnosia
Balint syndrome
What sign is more common in temporo-occipital lesion?
Prosopagnosia
What is the most widely used intelligence test in clinical practice?
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
Age range for Wechsler Adult Intelligence scale?
16-89 y/o
What age is Wechsler Preschool and Primary scale used for?
4-6.5 years of age
What is the Wechsler Adult intelligence scale composed of?
11 subtests:
6 verbal
5 performance
Lead to verbal, performance and combined IQ
What are the verbal tests in the Wechsler Adult intelligence scale?
Similarities Arithmetic Digit span Vocabulary Information Comprehension
What are the performance tests Wechsler Adult intelligence scale?
Picture arrangement Block design Picture completion Digit symbol Matrix reasoning
What are hold tests in Wechsler Adult intelligence scale?
Resistant to age-related decline. May be sensitive for organic brain damage.
What are the hold tests in Wechsler Adult intelligence scale?
Vocabulary
Information
Picture completion
Object assembly/matrix test
What are the non-hold tests in Wechsler Adult intelligence scale?
Block design
Digit span
Similarities
Digit symbol
How are the scores from hold and non-hold tests derived in Wechsler Adult intelligence scale?
Using a deterioration quotient
What is the Raven’s progressive matrix?
IQ test that is independent of education of cultural influences.
What tasks are used in Raven’s progressive matrix?
Visuospatial problem-solving (Performance IQ)
What ability is resistant to organic brain damage?
Reading
What is used to estimate premorbid IQ?
National adult reading test
What does the National adult reading test.. test?
Previous word knowledge prior to becoming ill
What is the stroop test?
Measures set shifting abilities and response inhibition
What does the stroop test.. test?
Frontal function
Ability to pay selective attention
What does the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.. test?
Abnormal in people with frontal lobe damage/caudate and some schizophrenics
Method of Wisconsin Card Sorting test
Stimulus of cards of different colour, form and number.
Present to patients to sort into groups according to principle e.g. sort by colour, ignore form and number.
Which four tests.. test set-shifting ability and thereby executive functioning?
Trail Making Test
Wisconsin Card Sort Test
Hayling Test (sentence completion)
Bixton task
What is the most widely used memory test battery for adults?
Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised
What does the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised test for?
Yields a memory quotient which is corrected for age and approximates the WAIS IQ.
In amnesic conditions, a disproportionately low MQ but preserved IQ is seen.
What does the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised consist of?
Verbal paired associate Paragraph retention Visual memory for designs Orientation Digit span Rote recall of alphabet Counting backwards
What is the Benton Visual Retention Test?
Short term visual memory test
What does the Benton Visual Retention Test consist of?
Presentation of geometric figure for 1- seconds, after which patient attempts to draw figure from memory.
What does the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test.. test?
Visuomotor coordination - both adults and children
What did Halstead and Reitan create?
Battery of tests to determine location of specific brain lesions.
Name the tests created by Halstead and Reitan.
Category Test Tactual performance test Rhythm test Finger-oscillation test Speech-sounds perception test Trail making test A and B Critical flicker frequency Time sense test Aphasia screening test Sensory-perceptual test
What are the components of consciousness?
Arousal - wakefulness
Awareness - attentional processing
What does arousal depend on?
ARAS - Ascending Reticular activatinv system
What does the ARAS do?
Via thalamic intralaminar nuclei, synchronises rhythmical bursts of neuronal activity (20-40Hz) from the thalamocortical connections.
arousal is proportional to these.
What is required for maintenance of attention?
Intact right frontal lobe
What can lesions in ARAS lead to?
Small lesions of ARAS = stuporous state
Large bilateral lesions at cortical level = depression in altertness
What is the pathology in most patients in stupor?
Diffuse organic cerebral dysfunction
Describe stupor in a patient
Appear to be asleep but when vigorously stimulated, will manifest alertness by ocular movement.
What happens if you do caloric testing in organic stupor?
Reveal tonic deviation
What happens if you do caloric testing in psychiatric stupor?
Ocular nystagmus
What damage leads to akinetic mutism?
Diencephalic or bilateral anterior cingulate damage.
Lesion that interferes with reticular/cortical integration but spares corticospinal pathways.
Signs of akinetic mutism?
Immobility
Eye closure
Little or no vocalisation
Absence of spastcity and rigidity
What pathology results in vegetative state?
Isolated actions of ARAS and thalamus in absence of higher cortical influence due to extensive cortical damage.
Signs of vegetative state
Spasticity and rigidity of limbs.
Pathology of Locked in syndrome
Total paralysis below level of third nerve nuclei.
Due to infarction of ventral pons, pontine tumours, pontine haemorrhage, central pontine myelinolysis, HI or brain stem encephalitis.
Signs of locked in syndrome
Patients open eyes and elevate and depress eyes on command, but horizontal eye movements lost.
No other voluntary movement possible.
Clinical tests for attention
Serial 7s
Digit span
Spelling ‘world’ backwards
Recite months of year/days of week in reverse order.
Why is reverse-order mont of year measure of sustained attention?
Highly over-learned sequence
What does digit span depend upon?
Working memory
What conditions is digit span impaired in?
Delirium
Focal left frontal damage
Aphasia
Moderate to severe dementia
What is normal digit span?
7+/-2
Varies with age and general intelligence.
5 is normal in elderly.
What is considered normal time orientation?
Being inaccurate by 2 days or less
What is included in person orientation?
Name
Age
DOB
When is disorientation to ones own name seen?
Psychogenic amnesia
What is orientation to place affected?
Reduplicative paramnesia, seen in delirium
What does executive function include?
Planning initiation Sequencing Coordinating Error detection/correction Set shifting Termination
What does executive function depend upon?
Dorsolateral frontal lobe
Intact frontal-subcortical circuits
What is impulsivity a result of?
Response inhibition - seen in inferior frontal pathology.
How can impulsivity be tested?
Go-No-Go task.
Describe the Go-No-Go task.
Examiner instructs patient to tap once in response to single tap and withhold a response for two taps.
When asking a patient to copy a short sequence of alternating squares and triangles, what are you testing?
Ability to switch task
Inhibition of appropriate or persevative responses
What does the cognitive estimates test.. test?
Will result in bizarre/improbable responses in patients with frontal or executive dysfunction.
What does questioning the similarity between two conceptually similar objects assess?
INferential reasoning
How does information go from the visual cortex towards the temporal or parietal cortex?
Dorsal (‘where’) stream
Ventral (‘what’) stream
What does the dorsal stream link?
Visual information with spatial position and orientation in parietal lobe
What does the ventral stream link?
Visual information to store of semantic knowledge in temporal lobes
What are disorders of visuospatial function?
Neglect
Constructional apraxia
What results in neglect?
Lesions in right hemisphere - usually inferior parietal or prefrontal
What results in left sided personal/extrapersonal neglect?
Damage to right parietal lobe
Which parietal lobe damage rarely results in neglect?
Left-sided
Which visuospatial side gets bilateral parietal lobe representation?
Right
How can neglect be discovered?
Simultaneous bilateral sensory or visual stimulation
Having patient bisect lines of variable lengths
Letter and star cancellation tasks
What is anosognosia?
Extreme form of neglect - patient will deny they are hemiplegic or that the affected limb belongs to them
What are apraxias?
Deficits in dressing and constructional ability
What do copying 3D shapes/clock test?
Constructional ability - will also highlight neglect
How to test dressing apraxia?
Ask patient to put on clothing that has been turned inside out
Classification of memory according to duration?
Immediate - seconds
Recent - minutes/days
Remote - months/years
Classification of memory according to encoding?
Explicit - semantic/episodic
Implicit
What is implicit memory?
Includes skills and procedures
What is semantic memory?
Memory for word meanings and general knowledge.
What is episodic memory?
Events
What does episodic memory depend on?
Hippocampal-diencephalic system
What is episodic memory important for?
Personal memories
What type of memories are anterograde and retrograde memories?
Episodic
What is working memory?
Limited capacity that allows us to retain information for a few seconds.
What is the working memory made up of?
Central executive system and 2 buffer systems.
What is the central executive system of working memory made up of?
Attention system
Dorsolateral prefrontal