Chapter 26: Neurological Disorders

Question 1

What are brain tumors?

Answer 1

A mass of cells whose growth is uncontrolled and serves no useful function.

Question 2

What are malignant tumors?

Answer 2

Cancerous tumor. Lacks distinct border and may metastasize

Question 3

What are benign tumors?

Answer 3

Non-cancerous tumor

Question 4

Metastasize

Answer 4

The process by which cells break off of a tumor, travel through the bloodstream, and grow elsewhere in the body.

Question 5

What are glial tumors?

Answer 5

Tumors that arise from glial cells.

Question 6

What is a glioblastoma?

Answer 6

Come from poorly differentiated glial cells (they don’t look like normal cells). The most aggressive types of tumors.

Question 7

Astrocytomas?

Answer 7

From astrocyte cells (support neurons): Some grow slowly, others grow quickly.

Question 8

Oligodendrocytoma?

Answer 8

Tumor common in children

Question 9

Medulloblastoma?

Answer 9

A tumor that begins in the cerebellum and is the most cancerous brain tumor in children.

Question 10

Meningioma?

Answer 10

A tumor made up of meninges.

Question 11

What is a seizure?

Answer 11

A period of sudden, excessive activity of cerebral neurons.

Question 12

What is multiple sclerosis?

Answer 12

An autoimmune demyelinating disease. It usually affects people in their late 20s to 30s.

Question 13

Dementia

Answer 13

A term that refers to different conditions characterized by cognitive and functional decline.

Question 14

What is frontotemporal dementia?

Answer 14

A condition involving behavior/personality and language deficits that is due to frontal involvement. Symptoms
include having diminished spontaneous conversation. Short-term memory is also impaired due to disorganization in encoding and retrieval.

Question 15

What are the neurological markers of Alzheimer’s disease?

Answer 15

-Enlarged ventricles due to brain atrophy
-neurofibrillary tangles
-Acetylcholine levels are diminished.

Question 16

What is observed in the brain of someone who has vascular dementia?

Answer 16

Damage in brain blood vessels

Question 17

What is progressive fluent aphasia?

Answer 17

Loss of object knowledge, naming difficulty (anomia), and loss of facial recognition ability.

Question 18

What is a hemorrhagic stroke?

Answer 18

Strokes caused by the rupture of a blood vessel with bleeding in the surrounding tissue.

Question 19

What is an obstructive stroke?

Answer 19

occlusion (obstruction)of blood vessels by a thrombus or embolus.

Question 20

What are generalized seizures?

Answer 20

A seizure that is characterized by EEG abnormalities over the entire brain. This disorder is often genetic. There is a loss of consciousness involved.