Neuropsych Flashcards
1
Q
Achromatopsia
A
Condition characterized by a partial or total absence of color vision
2
Q
Agnosia
A
Inability to interpret sensations or recognize things, typically as a result of brain damage
3
Q
Agranulocytosis
A
A severe and dangerous leukopenia (lowered blood cell count)
4
Q
Akathisia
A
Extreme motor restlessness
An extrapyramidal side effect of neuroleptic drugs and a symptom of Parkinson’s disease
5
Q
Akinesia
A
Loss or impairment of the power of voluntary movement
6
Q
Anomia
A
A form of aphasia in which the patient has the inability to name a common or familiar object, attribute, or event
7
Q
Anosognosia
A
Inability to recognize one’s own neurological symptoms or other disorder
o Damage to the parietal lobe
8
Q
Anticholinergic Effects
A
Includes dry mouth, blurred vision, tachycardia (rapid heart rate), urinary retention, constipation, memory impairment, and confusion
o Caused by several drugs including antipsychotics and TCAs
9
Q
Aphasia
A
Impairments in the production and/or comprehension of language as a result of brain damage
10
Q
Broca’s Aphasia
A
Difficulty in producing written or spoken language with little or no trouble in understanding language
frontal lobe
11
Q
Wernicke’s Aphasia
A
Inability to comprehend written or spoken language with production of rapid speech that is lacking content
temporal lobe
“You know that smoodle pinkered and that I want to get him round and take care of him like you want before.”
12
Q
Conduction Aphasia
A
Does not affect language comprehension but does result in anomia, paraphasia, and impaired repetition
parietal lobe
13
Q
Apraxia
A
Inability to perform skilled motor movements in the absence of impaired motor functioning
o Damage to the parietal lobe
14
Q
Asomatognosia
A
loss of recognition or awareness of part of the body
15
Q
Ataxia
A
Characterized by slurred speech, severe tremors, and a loss of balance
o Damage to the cerebellum
16
Q
Dysprosody
A
Refers to a disorder in which one lacks normal intonation, stress, and rhythm
o May manifest as pseudo-foreign accent syndrome
17
Q
Gerstmann’s Syndrome
A
the loss of the ability to express thoughts in writing (agraphia, dysgraphia), to perform simple arithmetic problems (acalculia), to recognize or indicate one’s own or another’s fingers (finger agnosia), and to distinguish between the right and left sides of one’s body.
o Damage to the parietal lobe
18
Q
Nueroleptic Malignant Syndrome (NMS)
A
Rare but potentially fatal side effect of antipsychotic drugs. Involves rapid onset of motor, mental, and autonomic symptoms, such as muscle rigidity, tachycardia, hyperthermia, and altered consciousness
o Drug must be stopped as soon as symptoms develop to avoid fatal outcome
19
Q
Paresthesia
A
Pins and needles sensation
o Causes aren’t due to an underlying disease
20
Q
Tardive Dyskinesia
A
Potentially irreversible extrapyramidal side effect associated with long-term use of traditional antipsychotic drugs.
o Symptoms: Rhythmical, stereotyped movements of the face, limbs, and trunk
o Some cases symptoms are alleviated by GABA agonist or by gradual withdrawal of the drug
o More common in females and older patients
o Symptoms eventually improve when the drug is gradually withdrawn, although there may be an initial worsening of symptoms
21
Q
Prosopagnosia
A
Inability to recognize familiar faces
o Damage to the occipital lobe
22
Q
Synesthsia
A
“Joining Senses”
o A rare condition in which the stimulation of one sensory modality triggers a sensation in another sensory modality
E.g. hear a color or taste a shape
23
Q
Visual Agnosia
A
Inability to recognize familiar objects
o Damage to the occipital lobe
24
Q
Acetylcholine (ACh)
A
Associated with normal aging and Alzheimer’s related declines
o Involved in REM sleep and the regulation of the sleep-wake cycle
25
Dopamine
Involved in mood, motivation, and voluntary movement (three Ms)
26
What disorders are related to dopamine?
Parkinson’s disorder = Degeneration of dopamine receptors in the substantia nigra/nearby areas
Tourette’s disorder = Oversensitivity to or excessive dopamine in the caudate nucleus
Dopamine Hypothesis: Plays a key role in schizophrenia—Oversensitivity to or higher levels of dopamine
27
What drugs are related to an increase of dopamine?
Cocaine, amphetamines, alcohol, and stimulants elevate mood by increasing dopamine
28
Norepinephrine
Important role in mood, attention, dreaming, learning, and certain autonomic functions
Catecholamine hypothesis: Predicts some forms of depression are due to lower-than-normal levels
29
Serotonin
Mediates temperature, hunger, and thirst, sexual behavior, aggression, arousal, sleep, and migraine headaches
Decreased levels = Bulimia
Increased levels = Anorexia Nervosa
30
GABA
o Always inhibitory/reduces activity
o Low levels = anxiety
Benzodiazepines reduce anxiety by enhancing effects of GABA
31
Abnormal levels of GABA are associated with what disorders?
Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and sleep disorders
32
Glutamate
o Major excitatory neurotransmitter
| o Plays a role in long-term potentiation (LTP)—Responsible for the formation of long-term memories
33
What is the result of excessive levels of glutamate?
Excitotoxicity: Damages or destroys nerve cells
34
Endorphins
o Analgesic properties: Responsible for pain relief produced by acupuncture
o Implicated in certain pleasurable experiences, emotions, memory and learning, and sexual behavior
35
What disorders are associated with serotonin?
Depression, mania, OCD, social phobia, schizophrenia, and EDs
36
What are the three brain divisions?
hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain
37
Of the hindbrain, the __ regulates automatic responses such as breathing and HR, whereas the __ coordinates voluntary movements, is responsible for balance and posture, and plays a role in motor skills
medulla; cerebellum
38
Abnormalities of the cerebellum can lead to what disorders?
autism, schizophrenia, and ADHD
39
What are the five groups of the spinal cord?
Cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal
40
Difference between quadriplegic and paraplegic?
o Paraplegia: Damage at the thoracic level; A loss of sensory and voluntary functioning in the legs
o Quadriplegia: Damage at the cervical level; Involves a loss of sensory and voluntary functioning in the arms and legs
41
somatic nervous system
Carried signals from the skeletal muscles and sense to the CNS and from the CNS to the skeletal muscles
Associated with activities that are considered voluntary
42
Autonomic Nervous System
Controls glands and muscles of the internal organs, associated with involuntary (automatic) activities
sympathetic and parasympathetic
43
Sympathetic nervous system
flight or fight reaction
44
Parasympathetic nervous system
relaxation and energy conservation
Meditation, hypnosis, biofeedback, and other techniques are used to foster the “relaxation response” by activating this branch
45
Of the midbrain, __ is involved in respiration, coughing, vomiting, posture, locomotion and REM sleep.
reticular formation
46
Reticular activating system
Plays a role in arousal and consciousness
o Includes the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS)—Involved in selective attention and arousal
o Damage disrupts the sleep-wake cycle and can produce a permanent coma-like state of sleep.
47
Structures of forebrain
thalamus, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, limbic system
48
Thalamus
Integrates information from all of the senses except olfaction and relays it to the cerebral cortex
49
Hypothalamus
Responsible for maintaining the body’s homeostasis through its influence on the ANS and endocrine glands
o Generates physiological reactions associated with rage, fear, and other strong emotions
o Controls the release of hormones from the pituitary and other endocrine glands
o Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN): Controls the body’s circadian rhythms including the sleep/wake cycle and normal daily fluctuations
50
Basal ganglia
Caudate nucleus, putamen, globus pallidus
Control of voluntary movement
Damage can cause akinesia and hypokinesia
Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Tourette's, OCD, and ADHD
51
Limbic system
amygdala, hippocampus, cingulate cortex
52
Kulver-Bucy syndrome
Produced by lesions in the amygdala and temporal lobe, which causes emotional blunting, excessive hunger, inappropriate sexual behaviors, and inability to recognize familiar objects or people
53
Hippocampus
Plays a role in processing visual, spatial, and verbal information and consolidating declarative memories
If I saw a hippo I would remember it! = Processing visual memories
Essential for the formation of visual memories
54
cingulate cortex
Involved in attention, emotion, and the perception and subjective experience of pain
Involved in the transmission of pain signals
Important role in the emotional response to painful stimuli
55
Cerebral cortex makes up __ of the brain's total weight
80%
56
The __ side of the brain is associated with logic, language, dominance, and positive emotions.
left
57
The __ side of the brain is associated with visuospatial skills, creativity, nonverbal memory, non-dominance, and negative emotions.
right
58
The __ part of the frontal lobe plays a roll in emotion, memory, self-awareness, and higher order functions
prefrontal cortex
59
Damage to the __ Area causes impaired judgment, planning, and organization as well as inflexible, perseverative responses
Dorsolateral
60
Damage to the __ area causes pseudo-psychopathy, which involves emotional liability, distractibility, poor impulse control, and impaired social insight
orbitofrontal
61
Damage to the __ area produces pseudo-depression, which involves impaired spontaneity, reduced emotional reactions, and diminished motor behavior and verbal output
mediofrontal
62
The __ in the frontal lobe is part of the pyramidal motor system and different areas control muscles in different parts of the body
Primary Motor Cortex
63
The somatosensory cortex is associated with the __ lobe
parietal
64
The __ processes touch, pressure, pain, temperature, proprioception (the sense of self-movement and body posture)
somatosensory cortex
65
The __ lobe contains the auditory cortex
temporal
66
The __ lobe houses areas essential for encoding, storage, retrieval of LT declarative memories
temporal
67
__ are more prone to colorblindness.
Males
68
What is the most common form of colorblindness?
red-green
69
__ senses are associated with pressure, warmth, cold, and pain.
cutaneous
70
Coping strategies for pain
Active coping strategies such as exercise, physical therapy, using distractions, and ignoring the pain
71
__ Law suggests that the more intense a stimulus, the greater the increase in stimulus intensity required for the increase to produce a “just noticeable difference." E.g. Explains why a whisper is audible is a quiet room, but not in a very noisy room
Weber's
72
__ Law suggests that physical stimulus changes are logarithmically related to their psychological sensations
A person’s experience of stimulus intensity increases arithmetically as the stimulus intensity increases geometrically
Fechner's
73
Asking participants to assign numbers to intensity of sensations is associated with what law?
Steven's Power Law
74
Evidence that the __ is responsible for the recall of traumatic events and may contribute to the development of PTSD
amygdala
75
Removal of __ Lobe leads to deficits on __ memory tasks, e.g. face-recognition, spatial position, maze-learning, and emotional memory
R; non-verbal
76
Removal of __ Lobe leads to impaired performance on measures of __ memory, e.g. recall of lists and stories, recognition of words and numbers
L; verbal
77
The __ adds emotional significance to memories.
amygdala
78
Basic emotions
fear, anger, happiness, disgust, surprise, and sadness
79
Cannon-Bard
Bodily and emotional reactions to external stimuli occur simultaneously
Result of thalamic stimulation of the cortex and the peripheral nervous system
Supported by research showing bodily reactions are fairly similar for all emotions, which suggests the nature of the emotional experience does not just reflect differences in bodily arousal.
80
Two-factor theory
human emotions contain two factors or parts: physical arousal and a cognitive label
Ex: you are probably going to be more angry in the aroused state than if you got the news in a less aroused state.
81
Cognitive-appraisal theory
Emotions are universal but there are differences in how emotion-arousing events are interpreted or appraised
82
Primary appraisal
Refers to a person’s evaluation of a situation as irrelevant, positive-benign, or stressful with regard to their own well-being
• The outcome of primary appraisal depends on the individual’s beliefs, values, and expectations
83
Secondary appraisal
The person’s evaluation of the resources they have to cope with a situation that has been identified as stressful
84
Re-appraisal
The person monitors the situation and, as necessary, modifies their primary and/or secondary appraisals
85
Mediates pos and neg emotions
cerebral cortex
86
A neural network that mediates the experience and expression of emotion
Papez's circuit
87
__ hemisphere mediates positive emotions
L; damage can cause catastrophic anxiety/depression
88
__ hemisphere mediates negative emotions
R; sadness, anger, and other neg feelings; damage can cause apathy or undue cheerfulness
89
Hypothalamus
Generate physiological responses associated with fear, rage, and other strong emotions
90
Type A behavior
Highly competitive and achievement-oriented, have a sense of time urgency, and tend to be hostile, easily irritated, and impatient
Strongly associated with health problems, especially coronary heart disease in males
91
sexual dimorphism
Sex-related differences in physical appearance
Research has confirmed that the human brain is sexually dimorphic, including differences in the size of the corpus callosum, hippocampus, and SCN.
92
EEG patterns
Beta, Alpha, Theta, Delta
93
Alert, fully awake state
Beta waves
94
Awake, rested, relaxed state
Alpha waves
95
Deep relaxation, light sleep
Theta waves
96
Deep sleep
Delta waves
97
Sleep Stage 1
Alpha waves are replaced by theta waves
98
Sleep Stage 2
Slightly deeper stage of sleep and is dominated by theta waves
99
Sleep Stage 3
Theta waves are replaced by delta waves
100
Sleep Stage 4
Delta waves dominate, referred to as deep sleep stage
101
Sleep Stage 5
REM sleep, Most vivid dreams
102
__ sleep decrease from childhood to adulthood
REM
103
Open-head injury
Produces more localized damage and highly specific symptoms
104
Close-head injury
Causes alteration in consciousness and anterograde/retrograde amnesia
105
Glasgow coma scale
The lower the number of the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) the more severe the injury, e.g. 8 or less = severe
106
Posttraumatic amnesia
Refers to post-injury anterograde amnesia, and its duration has been found to be a good predictor of the persistence of cognitive, motor, personality, and other types of symptoms caused by the injury
107
Retrograde amnesia
Recent memories being affected more than remote memories
| o Memories from more distant past return first
108
Postconcussional syndrome
Impaired cognitive functioning and neurobehavioral symptoms
Loss of consciousness, period of amnesia or seizures, persisting deficits in attention or memory, 3 or more—irritability, fatigue, headache, dizziness, depression, and anxiety
Most recover within 1-3 months
Symptoms that last >1 year may become permanent
109
What causes seizures?
abnormal discharge of electrical energy by nerve cells in the brain signaled by:
• An aura that signals the onset of the seizure, e.g. a feeling, odor, or noise
• A loss of consciousness
• Some type of abnormal movement
110
How do you diagnose a seizure disorder?
medical hx, physical exam, EEG
111
Tonic-clonic (grand mal)
Characterized by a loss of consciousness, an initial tonic stage where the muscles contract and the body stiffness, and then a clonic stage that involves rhythmic shaking of the limbs
o Includes postictal depression or confusion with amnesia for the ictal event
112
Absence (petit mal)
A loss of consciousness without prominent motor symptoms
o Person often exhibits a “blank stare” with frequent eye blinking
o Some evidence that the thalamus plays a role
113
__ seizures begin in one side of the brain and affect one side of the body
partial; simple, complex
114
__ lobe seizures include hallucinations, a sudden alteration in emotion, a sense of deja-vu, and automatisms
temporal
115
Huntington's disease has been linked to degeneration of __ secreting cells in the __ __ and __
GABA; basal ganglia, cortex
116
Positive symptoms of parkinson's disease
Tremor at rest, muscle rigidity, and akathisia
117
Negative symptoms of parkinson's disease
Impaired balance and coordination, speech disturbances, bradykinesia, and akinesia
118
__ helps alleviate symptoms in early stages by increasing dopamine levels in the brain
L-Dopa
119
Is MS more common in men than women?
women
120
A progressive disease of the nervous system that involves a degeneration of the myelin that surrounds nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord
multiple sclerosis
121
__ hypertension is diagnosed when high blood pressure is not due to a known physiological cause
primary
122
__ hypertension is diagnosed when elevated blood pressure is related to a known disease; Treatment emphasizes lifestyle modifications, may include use of a diuretic, beta blocker, or other blood pressure medication
secondary
123
Migraine headaches are associated with low __ levels
serotonin
124
a __ headache involves excruciating, usually burning, pain that occurs in clusters over a two to three month period; Usually located behind one eye and may also involve the face and temple
cluster
125
A __ Headache is associated with non-throbbing pain, usually on both sides of the head, at the back of the neck, and/or in the facial area; Attributed to stress and muscle tension; Also related to the dilation of blood vessels
tension
126
Endocrine disorders
hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, hypoglycemia, diabetes
127
hypoglycemia
Higher-than-normal levels of insulin, which can produce abnormally low blood sugar
Characterized by hunger, headaches, blurred vision, anxiety, depression, and confusion
128
diabetes
Lower-than-normal levels of insulin, which can produce excessive blood sugar
Characterized by increased thirst and urination, excessive hunger with weight loss, increased susceptibility to infection, and apathy and confusion
