Brain Lesions

Question 1

What are the symptoms of a lesion in the parietal lobe?

Answer 1

Sensory inattention (intact when unilateral, ignored when bilateral)

Apraxias (difficulty motor movements)

Astereognosis (tactile agnosia) - Cannot identify object in hand without other sensory input.

Inferior homonymous quadrantanopia

Gerstmann’s syndrome: alexia, acalculia, finger agnosia and right-left disorientation

Question 2

What are the symptoms of a lesion in the occipital lobe?

Answer 2

Homonymous hemianopia (with macula sparing)

Cortical blindness (blindness with no damage to eye)

Visual agnosia (Cannot arrive at meaning of visual stimuli)

Question 3

What are the symptoms of a lesion in the temporal lobe?

Answer 3

Wenicke’s (receptive) aphasia: fluent but making no sense

Superior homonymous quadrantanopia

Auditory agnosia

Prosopagnosia (difficulty recognising faces)

Question 4

What are the symptoms of a lesion in the frontal lobe?

Answer 4

Broca’s (expressive) aphasia: non-fluent, laboured speech

Disinhibition

Perseveration (keep saying /doing same thing)

Anosmia

Inability to generate list

Question 5

What are the symptoms of a cerebellar lesion?

Answer 5

Midline lesions: gait and truncal ataxia

Hemisphere lesions: intention tremor, past pointing, dysdiadokinesis, nystamus

Question 6

What does a lesion of the medial thalamus and mamillary bodies of the hypothalamus cause?

Answer 6

Wernicke and Korsakoff syndrome

Question 7

What does a lesion of the subthalamic nucleus of the basal ganglia cause?

Answer 7

Hemiballism (violent involuntary movements on one side of the body)

Question 8

What does a lesion of the striatum (caudate nucleus) of the basal ganglia cause?

Answer 8

Huntington chorea

Question 9

What does a lesion of the substantia nigra of the basal ganglia cause?

Answer 9

Parkinson’s disease

Question 10

What does a lesion of the amygdala cause?

Answer 10

Kluver-Bucy syndrome (hypersexuality, hyperorality, hyperphagia, visual agnosia)