Chapter 10 Flashcards
Brain damage and neuroplasticity
Name the two process of cells death.
Apoptosis and necrosis
Explain the process and role of apoptosis
Process of programmed safe and clean cell death, internal to the cell to eliminate not useful/damage cells. It can be dysregulated by brain damage causing overactivity or reduced activity
1. Cells shrinking or broken down in smaller segment
2. Absorbed by close immune cells with a cellular debris cleaning role
Explain the process of necrosis
Abnormal process of cell death, that is passive, uncontrolled, and unusual. It is
harmful and causing inflammation to its surroundings, can damage the brain.
- External factor causing the swelling of cells
- Causes the cells to burst
- Causing damage to neighboring cells
What are brain tumors?
Abnormal growth of tissue
Name the different types of brain tumors
Meningiomas and infiltrating brain tumors
Meningiomas are about ____% of brain tumors.
20%
Explain what meningiomas are (benign or malignant, symptoms, treatment procedure)
Brain tumors growing encapsulated in the meninges. Most are benign, so they won’t spread or invade surrounding tissue.
Symptoms are headache and migraines because of the pressure on neighbouring brain tissu. Other symptoms are dependent in the location of the tumor.
We remove them surgically because of the symptoms they cause
Explain what infiltrating brain tumors are (benign or malignant, where do they come from, treatment procedure)
Tumors growing through neighbouring tissue and spreading, coming from other cancer that metastasized, small part of the cancer breaks out, going in the bloodstream and brought to the brain or elsewhere in the body. They are malignant.
Most common treatment are neurosurgical removal and chemotherapy. The injection of microbubbles is being tested
What is the problem with neurosurgical removal for infiltrating brain tumors?
They are difficult to remove or destroy, because they come from elsewhere so they often comes back. For lower grades tumor, they take longer to grow back, buying some time of the patient
What is the problem with chemotherapy?
The Blood Brain Barrier - it is difficult to develop drugs that can bypass it, increasing the dosage of the drug so a little gets in the brain, but increasing the side effects.
What is the new process to help bypass the blood brain barrier, and what it its process?
Injection of microbubbles.
- Injection of microbubbles in the bloodstream
- Targeting the tumor with an MRI to focus the treatment
- Aiming a laser at the microbubbles making them expand and vibrate
- Movement of bubbles poke holes in the BBB allowing the medicine to reach the tumor
- Still under investigation and clinical trial
What is another name for strokes?
Cerebrovascular disorders
What is a stroke? (how common, risk factors)
Interruption of blood supply to the brain, causing brain damage.
It is very common - 3rd leading cause of death in Canada
The risk factors are age, high blood pressure, smoking, diet, and stress.
Age it the ____ important risk factor for a stroke, after ___ years old the risks _____
most, 55, doubles
__% of people will die, __% of people will make full recovery after a stroke, others will have after-effects
15% and 10%
What are common after effects of a stroke?
motor, cognitive, emotional, and psychological - depression, anxiety, and persistent fatigue
What is the acronym to help recognize early signs of strokes, and name other common signs?
FAST
F: Face - Drooping of one side
A: Arms - Motor function affection, one side weaker, can’t lift both arms equally
S: Speech - Slurred, not making sense
T: Time - Important to act fast, even when symptoms are temporary we should go to the hospital
Other: Confusion, balance affected, headache, …
Why what strokes symptoms are temporary we should still go to the hospital?
Because of TIA - Transient ischemic attack: Blood clot separating and getting stuck somewhere else
Why are strokes often causing unilateral effects?
Most blood vessel supply one hemisphere only
What are the major focus of research for strokes?
Keeping people alive - Before, strokes were even more deadly, so we needed to find solution to keep people alive.
Motor rehabilitation - 10-15 years ago we started focusing on getting people to walk and speak again
Then, in the last 10 years, it switched from focus on motor rehabilitation to more cognitive and emotional rehabilitation - Memory, attention, processing speech, executive function, language, …
Why did the research focus for strokes turned to cognitive?
Important research showed that people are better at coping/compensating with motor function loss than cognitive or emotional ones. People prefer gaining these function back so they can maybe go back to work
Name the type of strokes.
Cerebral hemorrhage and Cerebral ischemia
What are cerebral hemorrhage and its different types?
Blood vessel rupturing causing bleeding in the brain.
Subarachnoid stroke - Bleeding at surface of the brain in subarachnoid space
Intracerebral stroke - Bleeding deep inside the brain
Hemorrhage strokes are often caused by ___? (What, how common, risk, interventions)
Aneurysms are weakened spots causing balloon like bulges in the walls of blood vessels
They are very common, most of the time we don’t know we have them
The risk will depend on the size, person’s health and age. There is a higher risk of rupturing causing a stroke when mixed with other risk factors, especially high blood pressure
Interventions are made to isolate the aneurysms from the blood circulation
Clipping of aneurysm: using a clip to isolate it
Coiling: Filling it with coil
What are cerebral ischemia and its different types?
Interruption in the blood supply to the brain caused by a blockage/blood clot.
Thrombotic: Blood clot formed in a blood vessel supplying directly to the brain, not moving from its point of origin
Embolic: Blood clots formed elsewhere that get detached and get stuck in a blood vessel feeding the brain.
What are ischemic strokes often caused by?
Atherosclerosis, the narrowing of arteries. When getting older, there build up of substances in arteries (fat, calcium…) making the artery less flexible and making it more likely for clot to get stuck
Ischemic strokes are ___ dangerous than hemorrhage strokes, and are __% of strokes are ischemic
Less and 85%
Which ischemic stroke is the most dangerous and why, thrombotic or embolic?
Embolic are more dangerous because of the apparition of symptoms.
In embolic strokes symptoms appear suddenly when the clot gets stuck in the vessel supplying the brain, our body doesn’t see it coming.
In thrombotic the clot gradually forming will make symptoms appear gradually, giving more time to realize before the stroke
Describe the process of cell damage due to cerebral ischemia
Interruption in blood supply means certain cells are not receiving the oxygen they need making them overactive.
- Ion pumps of cells not receiving oxygen they need will stop working
- The stopping of sodium-potassium pump causes buildup of sodium ions in the cell causing cell to depolarize
- Sodium is also salt, making the cells thirsty, so they will take in more extracellular fluid
- Making the cell swell and burst - Calcium pump not functioning will cause a buildup of calcium ions in the cell causing NT to be released (mostly glutamate)
- Tone of glutamate is released in the synapse binding to postsynaptic neurons and contributing to it’s depolarization
- Damage will spread slowly from cell to cell and overactivity in the brain will increase, because the postsynaptic cell receiving all the glutamate are overstimulated, causing them to start producing excess glutamate
What treatment can be used for ischemic strokes, its effect and administration time.
Extremely powerful blood thinner administration - tPA
Stops the sequence of event happening in the brain, but cannot restore any brain damage. Needs the be administered in the first 3h of first stroke signs
Why tPA needs to be administered before a certain point in ischemic strokes?
If administered after 4h because blood vessel walls are weakening, sudden return of blood flow could lead to rupture creating hemorrhage.
What different closed head injuries did we saw in class?
Cerebral contusions, concussions, punch drunk syndrome/chronic traumatic encephalitis
What is a cerebral contusion?
The brain collides with the skull causing bruising to the brain. Swelling and bleeding can also happen
What type of injury will often happen with a contusion and what is it?
A coup-contre-coup injury is an impact after impact. After the first impact, the brain bounces back and hitting the opposite side
Is a cerebral contusion a functional or structural injury?
Structural, can be visualized with structural imaiging
What is a concussion?
Brain moving inside the skull because of a too fast acceleration/deceleration of movement causing disturbance in the brain’s function
Are concussion structural or functional injuries?
Functional, because it affects/disturbs the brain function.
What other name is given to a concussion, and what is the problem with it?
A mild brain injury, but it is misleading because it is suggesting that concussions does not have a big impact on people’s lives, but can have a big impact and they need to be taken seriously.
What are common symptoms of concussions?
Loss/altered level of consciousness, memory loss, confusion, headache, sensitivity to light and sound, nausea and vomiting, and loss of balance.
Why can we experience sensitivity to different senses after a concussion?
Because of issues caused to the thalamus. The thalamus is the sensory relay, so it is harder for our brain to deal with sensory input.
What is the recovery process and why is it important to follow it?
The recommendations are to reduce activity level to a minimum. When we have no more symptoms, activity can be progressively started. If symptoms reappear, we needs to start over.
If the recommendations are not followed, it can lead to a post-concussive syndrome.
What is the other name for punch drunk syndrome and in who was it first recognize?
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), recognize first in boxers.
What is the punch drunk syndrome and how do we diagnose it?
Permanent damage after multiple concussion and repeated blow to the head.
It is only diagnosed at autopsy.
What are the symptoms or CTE
Memory impairments, executive functions, mood disturbance, dysregulated behaviours
CTE of otfen mistaken for what disease and why and what are the differences in symptoms?
It is often mistaken with Alzheimer’s disease because they have similar markers, but the early development of Alzheimer are memory impairments and CTE’s early symptoms are behavioural and emotional changes.
What are examples of dysregulated behaviours in CTE?
Increase aggression, substance abuse, depression, irritability, …
Often, the cause of death observe in patient with CTE was…
Suicide
What are brain infections and what is it typically leading to?
Any invasion of the brain by microorganisms typically leading to encephalitis or meningitis.