NSG Comprehensive Board Review Flashcards
What are Virchow-Robin spaces?
Perivascular potential space, between blood vessels and the surrounding sheath of leptomeninges entering the nervous tissue (brain and spinal cord).
What ion(s) are increased in CSF compared to plasma?
Chloride.
What ion(s) are decreased in CSF compared to plasma?
Potassium, calcium, uric acid and glucose.
Describe Froin’s syndrome.
CSF xanthochromia and clotting (due to the presence of fibrinogen) occur when CSF is loculated, usually in the lumbar thecal sac.
CSF protein is increased (up to 1000mg/L).
Sites of CSF production?
70% choroid plexus, 18% ultrafiltrate, 12% metabolic H20 production.
What nuclei controls CSF production?
Raphe nuclei send axons (serotonin) to the periependymal vessels.
Rate of CSF production.?
0.3-0.37mL/min or 20mL/hr.
The BBB is formed by what?
Capillary endothelial tight junctions (mainly).
Pinocytic activity in endothelial cells.
Astrocytic foot processes.
What are the circumventricular organs?
- Organum vasculosum (lamina terminalis).
- Neurohypophysis.
- Median eminence of the hypothalamus.
- Subfornical organ.
- Subcommissural organ.
- Pineal gland.
- Area postrema.
Functions of the organum vasculosum (lamina terminalis).
- Outlet for hypothalamic peptides.
2. Detect peptides, amino acids, and proteins in the blood.
Functions of the neurohypophysis.
Outlet for hypothalamic hormones (oxytocin and vasopressin).
Functions of the median eminence of the hypothalamus.
Release hypothalamic-releasing factors.
Functions of the subfornical organ.
- May be involved in body fluid regulation.
- Located between the foramina of Monro.
- Connected to the choroid plexus.
Functions of the subcommissural organ.
- Function unknown.
- Located under the posterior commissure.
- The only circumventricular organ with an intact BBB.
Functions of the pineal gland.
- Melatonin production.
2. Role in circadian rhythm.
Functions of the area postrema.
- A chemoreceptor that induces emesis when stimulated by digitalis or apomorphine.
- Located on the floor of the 4th ventricle.
- The only paired circumventricular organ.
CBF in normal brain tissue.
50 mL/100g brain tissue per minute.
CBF in the ischemic penumbra (reversible).
8-23mL/100g brain tissue per minute.
CBF in irreversible neuronal death.
<8mL/100g brain tissue per minute.
What percentage of the population has a hypoplastic vertebral artery?
40%.
Intraosseus branches off the C3 segment of the ICA.
- Caroticotympanic artery.
- Vidian artery.
- Periosteal arterial branches.
Describe a persistent stapedial artery.
Embryonic stapedial artery that fails to involute (primitive hyoid branch of the ICA).
Courses from the vertical segment, exits through a bony canal on the cochlear promontory and traverses the footplate of stapes to terminate as the middle meningeal artery.
If present, the foramen spinosum is either small or absent with enlarged geniculate fossa (Y-shaped).
Describe a persistent otic artery.
Primitive otic artery that fails to involute.
Embryonic carotid-basilar anastomoses.
Connects petrous ICA to embryonic dorsal longitudinal neural arteries.
Branches of the intracavernous (C4) ICA.
- Meningohypophyseal trunk (posterior trunk).
- Inferolateral trunk (artery of the inferior cavernous sinus).
- Medial trunk (McConnell’s capsular arteries).