Lecture 20 - Neurological Problems Flashcards

Question

What is an open head injury?

Answer 1

A brain injury caused by a penetrating object that damages blood vessels and increases pressure within the brain.

Answer 2

A serious injury to the brain that can cause long-term neurological issues, including scarring, seizures, and increased risk of Alzheimer's disease later in life.

Answer 3

Approximately 1.4 million people visit the ER for TBI, 270,000 are hospitalized, and 52,000 die from it annually.

Answer 4

The most common cause of seizures is scarring, which often relates to an injury, a stroke, a growing tumor, or a developmental brain abnormality.

Answer 5

Other causes include high fevers (especially in young children) and withdrawal from GABA agonists, such as alcohol and barbiturates.

Answer 6

Idiopathic means that the cause of the seizure is unknown. Some contributing gene mutations have been identified.

Answer 7

Gene mutations affect the amount or function of ion channels in the brain, the wiring of excitatory and inhibitory neurons, and the rules that govern synaptic plasticity, causing neural network instability.

Answer 8

The preferred term for epilepsy is seizure disorder.

Answer 9

No, most seizures do not involve convulsions of the body. The seizures that do involve convulsions activate neurons in the motor system.

Answer 10

A convulsion is a violent sequence of uncontrollable muscle movements caused by a seizure.

Answer 11

A partial (focal) seizure begins at a specific focus in the brain and remains localized. It does not generalize to the rest of the brain.

Answer 12

A simple partial seizure does not involve loss of consciousness, while a complex partial seizure causes loss of consciousness.

Answer 13

A generalized seizure involves most of the brain, including tonic-clonic seizures, atonic seizures, and absence seizures.

Answer 14

Seizures can spread across neighboring areas of the brain within and across episodes.

Answer 15

An aura is a sensation that precedes a seizure, and its exact nature depends on the location of the seizure focus.

Answer 16

A tonic-clonic seizure typically starts with an aura, followed by a tonic phase (muscle contraction) and then a clonic phase (rhythmic jerking movements).

Answer 17

The tonic phase is the first phase, where all of the patient’s skeletal muscles are contracted.

Answer 18

The clonic phase is the second phase, characterized by rhythmic jerking movements.

Answer 19

Yes, children are especially susceptible to seizure disorders, often experiencing absence seizures instead of tonic-clonic episodes.

Answer 20

Absence seizures are generalized complex seizures where a person stops what they’re doing, stares off into the distance, and blinks repeatedly. They usually last less than 15 seconds.

Answer 21

Seizure disorders are treated with anticonvulsant drugs, such as benzodiazepines, which increase the effectiveness of inhibitory synapses.

Answer 22

They increase the effectiveness of inhibitory synapses, helping to prevent seizures.

Answer 23

If drugs don’t help, the seizure foci may remain irritable, and brain surgery might be required.

Answer 24

Toxins like organophosphates (from insecticides) and heavy metals (e.g., lead and mercury), as well as viruses like rubella and Zika, can impair fetal brain development.

Answer 25

Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can cause babies to be smaller and develop more slowly. Fetal alcohol syndrome can occur, leading to facial anomalies and severe intellectual disabilities.

Answer 26

PKU is a hereditary disorder caused by the absence of an enzyme that converts phenylalanine to tyrosine. This leads to brain damage unless treated with a special diet.

Answer 27

Tay-Sachs disease is a fatal, inherited metabolic storage disorder where a lack of an enzyme causes accumulation of waste products in the brain, leading to cell swelling and damage.

Answer 28

Down syndrome is caused by having an extra twenty-first chromosome. It leads to moderate to severe intellectual disability and physical abnormalities.

Answer 29

After age 30, the brains of people with Down syndrome begin to degenerate in a way similar to Alzheimer's disease.

Answer 30

MS is an autoimmune disease that damages the myelin sheaths in the central nervous system, causing neurological disorders due to demyelination.

Answer 31

In MS, the myelin sheaths are attacked by the person's immune system, leading to demyelination. This prevents successful action potential propagation along axons.

Answer 32

Damage occurs in the white matter of the brain and spinal cord, resulting in a wide variety of neurological disorders.

Answer 33

MS symptoms go through cycles of flare-ups (relapsing) followed by periods of remission. Over time, this is usually followed by progressive MS, which involves a continuous increase in symptoms.

Answer 34

- Interferon β – A protein that modulates immune system activity. - Glatiramer acetate – Peptides that mimic myelin (acts as a decoy).

Answer 35

People who grew up far from the equator are more likely to develop MS. One theory is that a childhood disease disrupts the immune system, causing it to attack healthy myelin later in life.

Answer 36

A contagious disease causing widespread brain degeneration, making the brain look like a sponge. It includes diseases like mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. It’s caused by the accumulation of misfolded prion proteins.

Answer 37

A prion is a misfolded protein that causes other copies of the same protein to misfold. This spreads the issue throughout the brain and can lead to neurodegeneration.

Answer 38

Prion diseases spread from cell to cell and from animal to animal through contact with misfolded prion proteins. The misfolded proteins cause other proteins to misfold as well.

Answer 39

Prion proteins are the only infectious agents made solely of protein. All other infectious agents (viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites) contain nucleic acids (DNA or RNA).

Answer 40

Huntington’s disease is caused by a mutation in the Huntingtin gene, leading to the misfolding of the huntingtin protein. It is a dominant mutation, so one bad copy of the gene is enough to cause the disease.

Answer 41

The huntingtin protein accumulates in the basal ganglia, causing degeneration of this area.

Answer 42

Symptoms of Huntington’s disease typically begin between ages 30 and 50, and death occurs 15-20 years later.

Answer 43

Symptoms include lack of coordination, jerky involuntary limb movements, dementia, and eventually death. The movements appear as fragments of purposeful movements but happen involuntarily.

Answer 44

Antisense therapy involves introducing antisense DNA (or RNA) to bind with mRNA, preventing it from being translated into protein. This approach aims to alter gene expression in living patients.

Answer 45

There is no cure for Huntington's disease. Although antisense gene therapy shows potential, recent clinical trials have not been successful.

Answer 46

Parkinson’s disease is caused by the degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra, located in the midbrain, often accompanied by aggregates of misfolded alpha-synuclein proteins.

Answer 47

Symptoms include muscle rigidity, slowness of movement, shaking, difficulty walking, and, eventually, dementia. People with Parkinson’s have increasing difficulty initiating purposeful movement.

Answer 48

Parkinson’s disease affects approximately 1% of the population, typically appearing after the age of 60.

Answer 49

There is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, but there are treatments that can alleviate motor symptoms.

Answer 50

As Parkinson’s progresses, cognitive, emotional, and sleep disturbances can occur, but there are currently no effective treatments for these symptoms.