Final Exam Flashcards
What is Broca’s aphasia?
• Difficulty for patients to express themselves verbally
- characterized by slow, laborious, and non-fluent speech
- They have something to say, but have trouble saying it – they are well aware of their condition and very frustrated by it
- They can understand language, just not speak it – BUT there are still some comprehension issues
What are articulation problems?
movement of mouth to make the appropriate speech sounds or a sequencing problem with words
What is agrammatism?
difficulty using grammatical devices and comprehending them
- Difficulty with word conjugation or order, such as verb endings (-ed)
- People typically don’t derive meaning from the sequence of words or the grammar of sentences, so they almost exclusively use content words (nouns, adjectives, etc.) without any function words (the, on, about, etc.)
What is a content word?
Noun, verb, adjective, or adverb that conveys meaning
What is a function word?
A word that conveys little meaning but is important for the grammatical structure
What is anomia?
difficulty in finding (remembering) the appropriate word to describe something
What is anomic aphasia?
When people have a hard time thinking of the word they want to say
- they can understand what other people say just fine and they talk just fine, but they describe things in circumlocution
What is circomlocution?
Strategy by which people with anomia find alternative ways to say something when they are unable to think of the most appropriate word
What are subvocal articulations?
very slight movements of the muscles involved in speech that do not actually cause obvious moment
What is stuttering?
Speech disorder characterized by frequent pauses, prolongations of sounds, or repetitions of sounds, syllables, or words that disrupt the normal flow of speech
- These people do have the ability to speak without a stutter, as is typically seen when they sing, speak aloud with another person, or read in cadence with a rhythmic stimulus
- Stuttering appears to be a problem of selecting, initiating, and executing the motor sequences required for fluent speech
What is dysgraphia?
Trouble with writing
What is phonological dysgraphia?
A condition where people cannot spell words by sounding them out (common in Broca’s aphasia) - they can only write words by imagining how they look
- Thus, they have to be very familiar with how the word looks or they cannot write it
- They cannot write non-words that sound fine, like blint or cak
What is orthographic dysgraphia?
A condition where people cannot spell words by visualizing them (common in people with damage to VWFA) – they can only sound words out
- This means they can’t correctly spell any words that have an irregular spelling (ex: half –> haff / busy –> bizzy)
What is a closed-head injury?
Caused by a blow to the head with a blunt object
- The bran comes into violent contact with the inside of the skull (coup)
- The brain the recoils in the opposite direction and smashes against the skull again (contrecoup)
What is an open head injury?
Penetration brain injuries that cause damage to the portion of the brain that is damaged by the object or the bone
- There’s also damage to the blood vessels that can deprive parts of the brain of their normal blood supply
- Accumulation of blood within the brain can cause further damage by exerting pressure within the brain
What is seizure disorder?
preferred term for epilepsy
- Sometimes, if neurons that make up motor systems are involved, a seizure can cause a convulsion, which is wild, uncontrollable activity of the muscles
- Most seizures don’t cause convulsions
What is a partial (focal) seizure?
Seizure that begins at a focus and remains localized, not generalizing to the rest of the brain
- a simple partial seizure is a seizure that does not produce loss of consciousness
a complex partial seizure is a seizure that produces a loss of consciousness
What is a generalized seizure?
Seizure that involves most of the brain (non-localized seizure)
- includes tonic-clonic seizures, atonic seizures, and absence seizures
What is an aura?
sensation that precedes a seizure – its exact nature depends on the location of the seizure focus
- Happens regardless of it being partial or full
What is a tonic-clonic seizure?
A generalized, grand mal seizure that typically starts with an aura that is followed by a tonic phase and then a clonic phase
- This type of seizure involves convulsions
What is a tonic phase?
first phase of tonic-clonic seizure, in which all of the patient’s skeletal muscles are contracted
What is a clonic phase?
second phase of a tonic-clonic seizure, in which patient shows rhythmic jerking movements
What are benzodiazepines?
They work by increasing effectiveness of inhibitory synapses
What is “errors of metabolism”?
Can cause brain damage or impair brain development
- genetic abnormalities in which recipe for a particular protein is in error
- typically, the cause is that an enzyme is not synthesized on account of mutations in both copies of the gene
- If the enzyme is a critical one, results can be very serious
What is Phenylketonuria?
Hereditary disorder caused by the absence of enzyme that converts the amino acid phenylalanine to tyrosine
- Accumulation of phenylalanine causes brain damage unless a special diet is implemented soon after birth
- As phenylalanine builds up, it will cause brain damage at some point
- It can be treated if you maintain a restrictive diet that doesn’t contain phenylalanine
What is Tay-Sachs disease?
Heritable, fatal, metabolic storage disorder
- Lack of enzymes in lysosomes causes accumulation of waste products and swelling of cells in brain
- Results in toxic loss of function
What is down syndrome?
Caused not by inheritance of a faulty gene but by possession of extra 21st chromosome
- Down syndrome is congenital, which does not necessarily mean hereditary – congenital refers to a disorder that one is born with
- It’s characterized by moderate to severe intellectual disability and often physical abnormalities
- Generally linked to older women giving birth
- After age 30, the brain of a person with Down syndrome begins to degenerate in a manner similar to Alzheimer’s disease
What is encephalitis?
inflammation of the brain caused by infection (bacterial or viral), toxic chemicals, or allergic reaction
- The first symptoms are headache, fever, and nausea
What is meningitis?
inflammation of meninges caused by viruses or bacteria
- The first symptoms are headache and stiff neck
What is Polio (acute anterior poliomyelitis)?
viral disease that destroys motor neurons of the brain and spinal cord
What is rabies?
Fatal viral disease that causes brain damage
- Usually transmitted though the bite of an infected animal and affects axon terminals
- Virus spreads very slowly to the brain
- Extremely rare in North America
What is herpes simplex virus?
virus that normally causes cold sores near the lips or genitals
- In rare cases, it instead enters the brain causing encephalitis and brain damage
What is multiple sclerosis (MS)?
Autoimmune demyelinating disease that usually occurs in people’s late 20s or 30s
- it’s generally a sporadic disease – one that is not obviously caused by an inherited gene mutation or an infectious agent
- At scattered locations within the CNS, myelin sheaths are attacked by the person’s own immune system, leaving behind hard patches of debris called sclerotic plaques
What is atherosclerosis?
process in which lining of arteries develop a layer of plaque, deposits of cholesterol, fats, calcium, and cellular waste products
- Risk factors include high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, diabetes, and high blood levels of cholesterol
- Precursor to heart attacks (blood vessel clogging to the heart) and strokes (blood vessel clogging to the brain)
What is a Hemorrhagic stroke?
rupture of a cerebral blood vessel
What is a ischemic stroke?
occlusion of a blood vessel
What is a thrombus?
Blood clot that forms within a blood vessel, which may block it and reduce blood flow to the affected area
What is the embolus?
Piece of matter that dislodges form its site of origin and occludes an artery
- in the brain, an embolus can lead to a stroke
What is a tumour?
Mass of cells whose growth is uncontrolled and that serves no useful function
What is a non-malignant tumour?
Non-cancerous, benign tumour
- has distinct border and cannot metastasize
What is a malignant tumour?
Cancerous tumour that lacks distinct border and may metastasize
What is metastasis?
Process by which cells break off of a tumour, travel through the vascular system, and grow elsewhere in the body
What is a glioma?
a malignant brain tumour
- The tumour initiating cells originate from the neural stem cells that make glia
- They rapidly proliferate and are more resistant to chemotherapy and radiation than most tumour cells
- The survival rate from malignant gliomas is very low
What is a meningioma?
non-malignant (encapsulated) tumour
- Composed of cells that constitute the meninges – the dura meter or arachnoid membrane – often right between the two cerebral hemispheres
- The meningioma may be encapsulated but it’s still very damaging
What is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy?
Contagious brain disease whose degenerative process gives the brain a sponge-like appearance
- accumulation of misfolded prion protein is responsible
What is a prion?
Misfolded proteins with the ability to transmit their misfolded shape onto normal variants of the same protein
What is Huntington’s disease?
Caused by one dominant mutation in the Huntington gene – over time, aggregates of huntingtin protein form in the basal ganglia, causing neurodegeneration
- Characterized by an increasingly severe lack of coordination, uncontrollable jerky limb movements, and eventually dementia followed by death
What is Parkinson’s disease?
Associated with degeneration of dopamine neurons in the midbrain, specifically in the substantia nigra
- Characterized by shaking, muscular rigidity, slowness of movement, difficulty walking, and eventually dementia
- Without treatment, people have increasing difficulty initiating purposeful movement
What is alpha-synuclein?
Protein heavily expressed in the midbrain dopamine neurons
- its function is not entirely clear
- abnormal accumulation is associated with dopamine neuron degeneration in Parkinson’s disease
What is a lewy body?
Aggregate of misfolded alpha-synuclein protein; found in the cytoplasm of midbrain dopamine neurons in people with Parkinson’s disease
What is Ubiquitin?
protein that is put on faulty/old/misfolded proteins, which targets them for degradation (it’s a molecular tag)
- Ubiquitinated proteins get brought to proteasomes, which breaks them into their constituent amino acids for recycling
What is Parkin?
Protein that plays a critical role in ubiquitination
- Mutated parkin causes familial Parkinson’s disease
- If parkin is defective, misfolded proteins accumulate and eventually kill the cell
What is Proteasome?
organelle responsible for destroying ubiquitinated proteins within a cell
What is toxic gain of function?
Genetic disorder caused by a dominant gene mutation that produces a protein with toxic effects
What is a loss of function?
Genetic disorder caused by a recessive gene mutation that fails to produce a protein that is necessary to avoid problems
What is dementia?
Progressive impairments to memory, thinking, and behaviour that affect the ability to perform everyday activities as a result of a neurological disorder
- Common causes are neurodegenerative disease, MS, multiple strokes, and repeated brain trauma (chronic traumatic encephalopathy)
What is Alzheimer’s disease?
a neurodegenerative disorder that causes progressive memory loss, motor deficits, and eventual death
- It’s associated with aggregates of misfolded beta-amyloid protein and severe degeneration within and around the hippocampus and neocortex
- Death all over the cerebral cortex
- Degree of damage is highly variable across different people
What is the Beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP)?
protein that is precursor for the beta-amyloid protein
- The gene for this protein is located on chromosome 21, which is the one duplicated (triplicated) in down syndrome
What is secretase?
Class of enzymes that cut the beta-amyloid precursor protein into smaller fragments, including beta-amyloid
- They make it so its 40 amino acids long
- If it’s longer, it can form dense clumps that can’t be cleared away by the brain
What is presenilin?
Protein that forms part of the secretases that cut APP
- mutations in presenilin can cause it to preferentially generate the abnormal long form beta-amyloid, which causes early-onset Alzheimer’s disease
What is an apolipoprotein E (ApoE)?
Glycoprotein that transports cholesterol in the blood and plays a role in cellular repair
- presence of the E4 allele of the apoE gene increases risk of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease
What is an amyloid plaque?
extracellular aggregation of beta-amyloid protein surrounded by glial cells and degenerating neurons
What is a tau protein?
microtubule protein that becomes hyper-phosphorylated in Alzheimer’s disease, disrupting intracellular transport, leading to neuronal death
What is a neurofibrillary tangle?
Intracellular accumulation of twisted Tau protein in dying neurons
- Begins with beta-amyloid aggregating together first
What is Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease or motor neuron disease)?
Degenerative disorder that attacks spinal cord and cranial nerve motor neurons
- Symptoms include spasticity (increased tension of muscles, causing stiff and awkward movements), exaggerated stretch reflexes, progressive weakness and muscular atrophy, and finally paralysis
What is schizophrenia?
Characterized by social withdrawal, disorganized and illogical thinking, abnormal speech, and an inability to understand reality
• Symptoms are grouped into 3 categories:
- Negative: the absence of behaviours – social withdrawal, reduced emotional expression, poverty of speech, and reduced motivation
- Cognitive: disorganized and irrational thinking, deficits in learning and memory, poor abstract thinking, and poor problem solving
- Positive: the presence of delusions and hallucinations
What is the seasonality effect?
A disproportionately large number of schizophrenic patients are born in February, March, April and May
- The number of schizophrenic births in late winter and early spring is especially high if the temperature was lower than normal during previous autumn
- This condition keeps people indoors and favours transmission of viral illnesses
What are atypical antipsychotic medications?
Recently developed medications that aim to reduce both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia
- they typically influence the activity of several NT receptors
What is clozapine?
First of the atypical antipsychotic medications
- it blocks both dopamine D2 and serotonin 2A receptors
What is aripriprazole?
An atypical antipsychotic
- acts as a partial agonist at the dopamine D2 and D3 receptors
- thought to reduce dopamine receptor activity in the striatum but boost it in the prefrontal cortex
What is autism spectrum disorder?
Characterized by troubles with social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behaviour
• In many cases there are clear cognitive impairments, intellectual disability, or reduced imaginative ability, but this is not always the case
What is Asperger’s syndrome (mild autism)?
Mostly just involve deficient or absent social interactions and repetitive and stereotyped behaviours along with obsessional interest in narrow subjects
- often do not include a delay in language development or the presence of important cognitive deficits
What is reinforcement?
Drugs that lead to dependency must first reinforce people’s behaviour
- If, in a particular situation, a behaviour is regularly followed by reinforcement that behaviour will become more frequent in that situation
What is naltrexone?
A somewhat long-acting, slow onset opioid receptor antagonist that is prescribed to alcoholics and opioid addicts
- it reduces the high produced by opiates (because the opiates can’t bind) but it also tend to reduce drug, alcohol, and food cravings in certain people
What is naloxone (narcan)?
Extremely rapid (and short-lived) opioid receptor antagonist that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose
- during an opioid overdose, people can lose their consciousness and stop breathing
- an injection of naloxone immediately reverses these effects and will actually put addicts into withdrawal
What is the maintenance approach therapy for drug use?
Potent opiate, similar to morphine or heroin but it has a slow onset and offset
- Methadone maintenance programs administer the drug to their patients in the form of a liquid, which they must drink in the presence of the personnel supervising this procedure
What is buprenorphine?
A high affinity partial agonist for the u opiate receptor
- it blocks the effects of other opiates, but itself only produces a weak opiate effect
- a relatively new treatment commonly mixed with a little naloxone to reduce potential for abuse
What is varenicline?
Serves as a partial agonist for nicotinic receptor
- approved for therapeutic use to treat nicotine addiciton
What is the vaccine approach therapy for drug use?
Compounds have been developed that cause the person’s own immune system to create antibodies against a drug, like cocaine
- When antibodies bind to the drug, it can no longer cross the blood brain barrier
What is ADHD?
Mental disorder characterized by problems paying attention, hyperactivity, or difficulty controlling (inhibiting) behaviour in an age-appropriate manner
- In general, children with ADHD often show reckless and impetuous behaviour, act without reflecting, let interfering activities intrude into ongoing tasks, and have difficulty withholding a response
What is OCD?
Characterized by:
- Repeatedly having certain thoughts (obsessions)
- A need to repeatedly check things or repeatedly perform certain routines (rituals or compulsions)
- These things happen to an extent that it causes
distress and impairs general functioning
- Symptoms are clustered into 4 groups: symmetry, cleaning, hoarding, and forbidden thoughts
What is bipolar disorder?
serious mood disorder characterized by cyclical periods of mania and depression
What is major depressive disorder?
serious mood disorder that consists of unremitting depression or periods of depression (that do not alternate with periods of mania)
What is mania (in bipolar disorder)?
Episodes that are characterized by a sense of euphoria that does not seem to be justified by circumstances
- People with mania usually exhibit nonstop speech and motor activity
What is ketamine?
NMDA glutamate receptor blocker
- Injections tend to relieve depression within hours and days
What is a tricyclic antidepressant?
Inhibits reuptake of serotonin and norepinephrine but also affects other NTs
What are SSRIs?
A class of drugs that specifically inhibit the reuptake of serotonin without affecting the reuptake of other NTs - ex: Prozac
What are SNRIs?
Antidepressant drug that specifically inhibits reuptake of serotonin and norepinephrine without affecting the reuptake of other NTs
What is the monoamine hypothesis?
Although SSRIs and SNRIs increase the levels of 5-HT and norepinephrine in the brain very rapidly, the drugs do not relieve symptoms of depression until they have been taken for several weeks
- This suggests that something other than a simple increase in monoamine receptor activity is responsible for the normalization of mood
What is an anxiety disorder?
A variety of psychological disorders characterized by unrealistic and unfounded fear and anxiety
- Includes muscle tension, over activity of the automatic nervous system, expectation of an impending disaster, and continuous vigilance for danger
What is generalized anxiety disorder?
characterized by excessive anxiety and worry serious enough to cause disruption of their lives
What is social anxiety disorder?
disorder characterized by excessive fear of being exposed to the scrutiny of other people that leads to avoidance of social situations in which person is called on to perform
What is panic disorder?
Disorder characterized by episodic periods of severe and unremitting terror
- Includes symptoms such as shortness of breath, irregularities in heartbeat, and other autonomic symptoms, accompanied by intense fear
What is anticipatory anxiety?
fear of having a panic attack promotes anticipatory anxiety that sometimes leads to the development of agoraphobia
What is agoraphobia?
Fear of being away from home or other protected places
- There more they stay inside, the more anxiety develops
What are Glucocorticoids?
A group of hormones (corticosteroids) that are important in protein and carbohydrate metabolism, secreted especially in times of stress
- Help to break down and convert proteins into glucose, make fats for energy, increase blood flow, suppress secretion of sex hormones, and stimulate behavioural responses
- Almost every cell in the body contains glucocorticoid receptors, which means that few of them are unaffected by these hormones
What is cortisol?
a specific glucocorticoid (steroid hormone) secreted by adrenal cortex in response to stress
What is PTSD?
A mental disorder that can develop after a person is exposed to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, or other threats on a person’s life
- Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related cues and efforts to avoid them, and an increase in the fight-flight response
