Lymbic System II

Question 1

What diseases are related to limbic system dysfunction in the amygdala?

Answer 1

Urbach Wiethe

PTST

Question 2

What causes Urbach-Wiethe Disease?

What are the symptoms?

Answer 2

Bilateral lesions of the amygdala

Symptoms:

1. Can’t recognize the emotion in other people’s faces
2. Loss of memory (esp. emotional content)

Question 3

What are the triad of symptoms associated with PTSD and what causes it?

Answer 3

1. Flashbacks

2. Avoidance

3. Hyperarousal

Caused by decreased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and increased activity in the amygdala which UNLEASHES it and leads to these issues.

Question 4

What are the positive and negative symptoms of Schizophrenia?

Answer 4

Pos: delusions and hallucinations

Neg: social withdrawal

Question 5

What causes Depression?

Answer 5

A decrease in NE and 5HT activity

Question 6

A patient has a TRIAD of symptoms

• *Anterograde amnesia** = no new memories
• *Disorientation** in space and time
• *Confabulatio**n = complete (unintentional) fabrication of information

What syndrome do they have?

Answer 6

Korsakoff’s syndrome!

Question 7

What are the causes of Korsakoff’s syndrome?

Answer 7

1. Chronic alcoholism
2. Thiamine deficiency

Both lead to atrophy of mammilary bodies and the mamillothalamic tract.

Korsakoff’s Syndrome begins as Wernicke’s encephalopathy (thiamine B1 deficiency) with psychosis, opthalmoplegia and ataxia and may progress to Korsakoff syndrome which is the irreversible form with memory loss, confabulation and confusion.

Question 8

What is Kluver Bucy syndrome?

Answer 8

1. Oral tendencies
2. Flat emotion
3. Hypersexuality
4. Visual agnosia (can’t discriminate between visual stimuli)

D/T LOSS of amydala or DECREASED activity in amygdala

Question 9

An elderly patient presents to you with

1. short term memory loss (early)
2. anxiety/depression
3. slow movements
4. loss of cognitive function (late disease)

What’s wrong with them?

Answer 9

It’s ALZHEIMERS–the most common cause of dementia in the elderly!

Question 10

Why do so many Down’s patients have early Alzheimers?

Answer 10

Because Alzheimers is amilial in 10% of cases with APOE4 allele and p-app allele (on chromosome 21)

Question 11

What parts of the brain degenerate with Alzheimers?

What input are you losing to the hippocampus?

Answer 11

Limbic structures

Frontal and Parietal Cortex

Loss of cholinergic input

Question 12

What is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy? (CTE)

Answer 12

Progressive neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated head trauma

Brain atrophy and NFTs present