PBL Topic 4 Case 8 Flashcards
(145 cards)
Identify the two main steps of micturition
- Bladder fills until tension in its wall rises above a threshold
- Which elicits a nervous reflex that empties the bladder
Identify the two parts of the bladder
- Body (major part)
- Neck (funnel shaped inferior part)
What name is given to the smooth muscle of the bladder?
- Detrusor muscle
What is the main function of the detrusor muscle?
- Emptying the bladder
What is the trigone?
- Triangular shaped area
- With a smooth mucosa
- Upper two apices receive the ureters
- Lower apex opens into urethra
What is the internal urethral sphincter composed of and what is its function?
- Involuntary smooth muscle
- Prevents emptying of bladder until pressure in the body of the bladder rises above a threshold
- Controlled by micturition centre in periaqueductal gray
What is the external urethral sphincter composed of and what is its function?
- Voluntary skeletal muscle
- Used to consciously prevent urination
What is the main innervation to the bladder?
- Pelvic nerves
- Which carry sensory and motor signals
- Which connect through spinal cord through sacral plexus
- Connecting to cord segments S2-S3
What are the sensory and motor functions of nerves supplying the bladder?
- Sensory: Detects degree of stretching
- Motor: Contraction of detrusor muscle, emptying of bladder
What is the function of the pudendal nerve in the innervation of the bladder??
- Innervates the external urethral sphincter
What is the function of the sympathetic chains in the innervation of the bladder?
- Stimulate blood vessels
Which nerves do the fibres of the sympathetic chain pass through to innervate the bladder?
- Hypogastric nerves
- Connecting mainly with L2 of spinal cord
Outline the process of renal emptying of urine
- Stretching of renal calyces as they are filled with urine
- Which increases inherent pacemaker activity
- Which initiates peristaltic contractions
- Which spread to renal pelvis along ureters
- Forcing urine from the renal pelvis into the bladder
What is the role of sympathetic and parasympathetic signals to the ureters?
- Parasympathetics enhance peristaltic contractions
- Sympathetics inhibit peristaltic contractions
What is vesicoureteral reflux?
- Shorter course of ureter in the bladder
- Contraction of bladder does not fully occlude ureter
- Causing reflux and enlargement of ureters
- Increasing pressure and damaging renal calyces and medulla
What is the ureterorenal reflex?
- Blockage of ureter stimulates pain fibres
- Which causes constriction of renal arterioles
- Decreasing urine output from kidney
- To prevent excess flow into the renal pelvis with a blocked ureter
What causes a micturition reflex?
- Stretch reflex initiated in posterior urethra as bladder fills
- Which is conducted to sacral segment of cord
- And reflexively back again to bladder through parasympathetic nerve fibres
Why is the micturition reflex considered to be self-regenerative?
- Initial bladder contraction activates stretch receptors
- To cause a greater increase in sensory impulses
- Which causes a further increase in bladder contraction
- This process begins to fatigue, permitting bladder relaxation
Identify a secondary reflex caused by the micturition reflex?
- A reflex passes through pudendal nerve
- To inhibit the external urethral sphincter
- If this inhibition is more potent in the brain than the sphincter muscles urination will occur
Where are the strong facilitative and inhibitor centres for micturition located in the brain?
- Pons
How does voluntary urination occur?
- Person contracts abdominal muscle
- Which increases pressure in bladder
- Allowing extra urine to enter bladder
- Which stimulates stretch receptors
- Excites micturition reflex /reflex inhibition of external sphincter
Outline the pathophysiology of atonic bladder
- Sensory nerve fibres from bladder are destroyed
- Preventing stretch signals from bladder
- Bladder fills to capacity and overflows a few drops at a time (incontinence)
Identify two causes of atonic bladder
- Crush injury to sacral region of spinal cord
- Damage to dorsal root fibres in neurosyphilis (tabes syphilis)
Outline the pathophysiology of automatic bladder
- Loss of facilitative impulses from brain stem and cerebrum
- Micturition reflex can still occur they are just no longer controlled by brain
- Micturition reflex can be stimulated by catheterisation or stimulating the skin in the genital region