Physiology Flashcards
What is syncope?
Syncope is the key feature is a transient loss of consciousness and common pathophysiologic mechanism that includes a cerebral hypoperfusion.
What are requirements for consciousness?
- Adequate perfusion of brain with oxygenated blood
- Adequate delivery of glucose
- Adequate neural activity
What are some of the causes of syncopal collapse?
- Situational - pain stress and other
- Reflex - vasovagal syncope
- Cardiac - arrhythmia and bradycardia
- Psychogenic - anxiety disorders, depressive disorders
- Metabolic/other - hypoglycemia
- Neurologic - seizures
What is the cause of reflex and neurally mediated syncope?
The transient shift in autonomy response tends to trigger vasodilation which reduces cardiac output. This cause a drop in blood pressure which reduces peripheral perfusion.
What is the cause of situational syncope?
Compression of the vena cava, reduced venous return reduced cardiac filling, reduced cardiac output and a decrease in blood pressure. This increase SNS output. When breathing is resumed – the venous system improves cardiac filing, above normal resulting in transient increase in blood pressure. This increases parasympathetic drive. Bradycardia occurs which reduces blood pressure hence decreased cerebral pefusion/syncope
What is the Non-syncopal TLOCs?
The term Transient Loss of Consciousness is sometimes used when the cause is either unrelated to cerebral hypoperfusion or is unknown
What is the cause of syncope in psychiatric disease?
Hyperventilation, leads to hypocapnia, causing a transient increase in cerebrovascular resistance coupled with simultaneous peripheral vasodilation
What is the relation between dizziness & TLOC in pregnancy?
Progesterone promotes vasodilation – systolic bp can decrease – increase the likelihood of orthostatic hypotension
What are the functions of insulin?
- Insulin promotes uptake of glucose into muscle and adipose tissue
- Insulin promotes fat and glycogen synthesis in the liver from acetyl CoA. Fat is sent to the adipose tissue for storage.
What is the mechanism of action of insulin?
- It binds to extracellular tyrosine kinase receptor
- Activation of protein kinase B occurs
- Cellular response leads to: anabolic pathway activation, catabolic pathway inactivation
- Modulation of gene expression
- Recruitment/translocation of insulin-regulatable transporters from cytoplasm to the cell membrane
What are the three types of movements humans can produce?
- Reflective - involuntary coordinated patterns of muscle contraction
- Rhythmic - repetitive rhythmic motor patterns e.g. chewing
- Voluntary contractions – actions generated by the cerebral cortex
What are the steps in a simple reflex arc?
- Receptors
- Sensory neuron
- Integraton centre
- Motor neuron
- Effector muscle
What are the two main sensory receptors in the muscles?
- Muscle spindle – capable of detecting changes in muscle length and rate of change in length
- Tendon organs – capable of detecting changes in muscle force
Explain the tendon tap reflex.
- The tendon in the knee is struck
- This cause the stretch of the quadriceps
- The stretch is detected by the muscle spindle
- The afferent signal is propagated to the spinal cord
- An efferent signal is send from the spinal cord to the effector muscle
- This causes muscle contraction
- Result - leg jerks forward
What is the main purpose of the golgi tendon organ?
It is to protect the muscle from injury due to sudden or excessive load. They reside on the junction between the muscle and the tendon and are able to used inhibition signals to protect the muscles