Causes of brain dysfunction Flashcards
What and where are the 3 major cerebral arteries?
Anterior, middle, and posterior cerbral artery
Ischemic stroke
Blockage of blood vessel
Hemorrhagic stroke
bleeding from blood vessel
3 risk factors for stroke
high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes
3 types of ischemic stroke
Thrombosis: blockage due to blood clot/other substance
Embolism: moving thrombus, then getting to space that is too narrow
Arteriosclerosis: thickening, hardening, and narrowing of arteries due to fatty plaque build up, lessening the amount of blood/other things that can pass through
Potential damage to ischemic stroke
Can take time to develop, hours to days
Some brain areas more vulnerable to ischemic stroke
The tissue is at risk to dying due to the lack of blood
2 mechanisms causing damage due to ischemic stroke
Excitotoxicity: high release of glutamate from cells after stroke, binding glutamate receptors and causing unwanted mechanisms in body
Neuroinflammation: microglia come to clean up damage neurons, but may take apart cells that could live and may break BBB
What are aneurysms?
Pooling of blood outside of blood vessels due to weakend vessel walls
May develop from high blood pressure or accumulated damage
What are two aneurysm interventions?
Clipping (blocking off balloon from the rest of the vessel)
coilling (inserting coil into the balloon to give it structure and to prevent blood from going into balloon)
Encapsulated vs infiltrating tumours?
Encapsulated grow within their own membrane
Infiltrating are not self-contained, are difficult to remove/destroy
Benign vs malignant
Benign are surgically removable and are little risk for further growth in body
Malignant tend to grow and spread sometimes due to metastasis
3 Types of brain infections
Bacterial, viral, parasitic
Bacterial infections examples
Inflammation (encephalitis)
Formation of cerebral abscesses (pockets of pus)
Viral infections examples
Nervous system specfic (rabies) or indiscriminate (herpes)
Parasitic infections examples
neurocysticerosis (tape worm in brain causing damage to brain tissue)
List 2 neurotoxins
Mercury, lead
Accumulates in brain/body over time
Even low levels of lead affect children’s learning and development
What is TBI?
Brain injury caused by an outside force, can be closed or open head
Common causes of TBIs?
Falls, car accidents, violence, sport injuries
What are contusions?
bruise on brain from slamming into skull
bursting of tiny blood vessels bleeding into tissue leading to bruise
What is hemorrhaging?
bleeding between brain tissue and the skull or inside brain tissue
What is Hematoma?
collection of blodd within the skull
What is subdural hematoma?
Blood vessel in the space between the skull and the brain is damaged
What is epidural hematoma?
Blood accumulating between the skull and dura matter (thick membrane covering brain)
Why do contrecoup injuries often accompany coup injuries
The impact of the brain bouncing backwards after the coup injury impact will typically occur, causing contrecoup injuries
What is diffuse axonal injury?
Injury to axons following TBI
compression, tension or shearing of axons
leads to disconnections of networks in the brain and not just in the impact area
Effects of repeated mild closed head injuries
Long-term cognitive and behavioural deficits
Impacting memory, attention, mood, and motor coordination
