Cortical Syndromes / Neurocognitive D/O Flashcards
blind man denies he is blind. What was injured?
Blind man complains of visual hallucinations. What is injured?
(Anton’s syndrome )
- Bilateral PCA infarct
- Damages both visual cortex (blind)
- and association cortex (responsible for detecting presence of vision)
(Charles Bonet’s syndrome)
- no lesions, but lilliput hallucinations due to brain unable to process lack of visual input
Patient Findings:
- Can’t attend to multiple objects in view
- Can’t reach for objects using visual information
- Can’t visually scan
What is this caused?
where is the lesion?
Balint’s syndrome (simultagnosia, oculomotor-apraxia, optic ataxia)
Bilateral parietal-occipital damage
What ischemic injury can cause pinpoint pupils?
Pontine lesions.
Syringomyelia versus Hydromyelia
Syringomyelia: fluid-filled cavity within spinal cord that is separate from the central canal (lined by gliotic tissue)
Hydromyelia = enlargement in the central canal itself (lined by ependyma)
Top 4 most common causes for TIA in children
Congential heart diseases
sickle cell
moyamoya
possibly migraine
Mutation most commonly associated with this imaging finding
Filamin A mutation
(Nodular periventricular heterotopia)
Differentiate the following:
Orbitofrontal syndrome
Dorsolateral syndrome
Anterior cingulate syndrome
Orbitofrontal syndrome
- Region responsible for integrating emotional cues and self-assessing if behavior is appropriate
- Lesions result in
- disinhibition
- undue familiarity
- impulsivitiy
- utilization behavior
- innapropriate jockularity
Dorsolateral syndrome
- Region responsible for executive functioning and planning
- Lesions result in problems with planning, anticipating, sequencing actions, and making decisions (“A>B>C>Dorsolateral syndrome”)
- Also problems with short term memory
Anterior cingulate syndrome
- Region responsible for motivation behavior
- lesions result in apathy / Abulia (severe apathy), decreased activity, decreased spontaneous speech, and (in most severe state) akinetic mutism
Differentiate the following:
Kluver-Bucy syndrome
Temporal lobe epilepsy syndrome
Kluver bucy
- Bilateral temporal lobe lesions (especially of amygdalae)
- Symptoms = “that episode of futurama when Bender became human”
- Hypersexuality
- docility / doesn’t recognized anger
- hyperphagia / hyperorality
- “voracious exploration” (hyermetamaphorsis
- Visual agnosia
- May also have amnesia and r eceptive aphasia, so often will also meet criteria for frontotemporal neurocognitive disorder
Temporal lobe epilepsy syndrome (think anti-bender or self-obsorbed philsopophy professor)
- HypOsexuality
- Hypergraphia and micrographia
- Hyperverbality
- “emotional stickiness”
- Deepened intellectual life (philosophical / religious focus)
Patient presents for 1-8 hours of retrograde AND anterograde amnesia, but preserved sensorium (anxious, not confused)
What caused this?
What is the likelihood it will recur?
Transient global amnesia
Etiology is unclear, presumed deep white matter disease / venous congestion
3-5% recurrence in 1 year
What is damaged here?
What is important about the side?
Right Parietal lobe
Left parietal lobe lesions less commonly result in hemineglect. If so they are often temporary and mild
Dorsal versus Ventral Visual pathway
Dorsal = Where
Ventral = What
What does this suggest?
Simultagnosia
Patient is able to identify objects in NIHSS “cookie” picture, but can’t describe scene, as well as inaccurate eye voluntary eye movements toward visual stimuli.
Where is his lesion?
What else would you likely see?
Balint syndrome (bilateral parietal lesion)
Simultagnosia
Oculomotor apraxia
optic ataxia: can’t direct hand in response to visual guidance
Sensory versus semantic agnosia
Sensory agnosia: lack of recognition when object is presented to particular sensory modality (visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory)
Semantic agnosia: lack of recognition of underlying meaning of object (“this sharp flat thing with a handle is a knife”
Inability to perform particular purposive actions is calle ___
Apraxia
1) when patient is asked to mime combing hair, they place their hand on their head. This is an example of ______
2) Patient gets dressed, brushes teeth, then gets into shower. This is an example of _____
1) ideomotor apraxia
2) ideational apraxia
Patient is unable to do math problems or recognize fingers.
What is damaged?
what will he also have?
Gerstman syndrome (damage to dominant Angulate gyrus)
Acalculia
finger agnosia
Agraphia
left-right confusion
Name four key components of the reward pathway
Basic ADL’s veruss Instrumental ADL’s
Basic ADL’s = “death”
- Dressing
- Eating
- Ambulating
- Toileting
- Hygiene
Instrumental ADL’s = “shaft”
- Shopping
- housekeeping
- accounting
- Food prep
- transportation
Patient comes in for evaluation of neurocognitive disorder.
Name 8 labs you will order, and what each is testing for
- CBC (Anemia, infection)
- Electrolytes + calcium (hyponatremia, SIADH)
- Glucose (Diabetes, hypoglycemia)
- BUN / Cr (renal failure, uremia)
- TSH (hypothyroidism)
- Liver enzymes (hepatic encephalopathy)
- Vitamin B12 (low b12)
- Urinalysis (infection, urosepsis)
Patient suspected to have alzheimers versus frontotemporal lobar degeneration.
what test would you order to differentiate the two?
PET
Imaging study indicated in AIDS patient with neurocognitive disorder and why?
SPECT
Lymphoma = increased perfusion
Toxoplasmosis = decreased perfusion
PET scan in NCD patient. What does this show?
PET scan in NCD patient. What does this show?
PET scan in NCD patient. What does this show?
PET scan in NCD patient. What does this show?
Pick’s disease (frontal degeneration)
Indications for LP in neurocognitive d/o workup
(8)
Suspicion for:
Metastatic cancer
CNS infection
reactive serum Syphilis
Hydrocephalus
Age < 55
Rapidly progressive or unusual dementia
immunosuppression
CNS vasculitits
If Grandma is demented, when should you take her license away?
(6)
Level A
- Clinical dementia rating (CDR) score > 0.5-1
- 0.5 (very mild)
- moderate driving risk
- 67-85% will pass driving test
- tolerated in other groups (like teenagers)
- 1.0 (mild)
- significant driving risk; consider stopping
- 41-76% will pass driving test
- 0.5 (very mild)
Level B
- Caregiver rating of unsafe driving
Level C
- history of crashes or citations
- MMSE score = 24
- reduced driving or situational avoidance (grandma doesn’t drive in the rain or during rush-hour)
- NOTE: LACK of this doesn’t imply lack of risk (could reflect lack of insight)
- Aggressive / impulsive personality
Woman says that pharmacologic managment of agitation in her elderly demented grandmother isn’t working.
How long before you consider stopping / transitioning agent?
4 weeks
Treatment for agitation / psychosis in patient with Lewy Body Disease
(2)
Quetiapine (low dose)
Clozapine (low dose)
Man brings his mother in for alzheimer’s follow-up visit and asks what his risks are for also getting it.
What factors are associated with increased risk (6 non-modifiable, 5 modifiable) and decreased risk (1 modifiable, 2 non-modifiable)
Increase risk of alzheimers
- Non-modifiable
- Age (risk doubles every 5 years after 65)
- Family history (increases risk by 2-3 fold)
- APOE4 allele (main genetic risk factor)
- Female sex (…but primarily due to longer lifespan)
- high homocysteine levels
- less eduction (lower “cognitive reserve”)
- Modifiable
- Cigarette smoking
- head trauma
- Cerebrovascular disease
- hypertension
- exposure to toxic chemicals
Protective factors
- Non-Modifiable
- High N-3 fatty acids
- APOE2 allele
- Modifiable
- Physical activity
Patient diagnosed with alzheimers asks how long she has.
How long is the average window between diagnosis and death?
10 years
Conceptual difference between APOE4 allele and Presenillin 1 mutation
APOE4 is risk-confering (doesn’t mean you will get it)
Presenillin 1 mutation is a mutation for an autosomal dominant condition
Pathologic findings associated with Alzheimers
A (4)
B (3)
C (1)
D (2)
- Senile (neuritic) plaques
- Location = extracellular
- 3 components
- Abnormal neuronal processes +
- Glial cells +
- amyloid beta 42 (AB-_42_) - this is the insoluable form
- neurofibrillary tangles
- Location: intracellular
- composed of ubiquitin + phosphorylated Tau
- Early neuronal loss
- Cerebral amyloid angiopathy
- amyloid-B forms plaques 9 (above) leading to small vessel vascular disease