Traumatic Brain injury Flashcards
What is traumatic brain injury
Injury to the brain caused by trauma to the head
- not congenital or degenerative in nature but caused by external physical force
What is the healthy frontal lobe associated with
- speech
- problem-solving
- concentration
What is the healthy parietal lobe associated with
- sensation of pain
- temperature
- touch
What is the healthy occipital lobe associated with
healthy vision
What is the healthy temporal lobe associated with
- memory
- organization
What is the healthy cerebellum associated with
- balance
- coordination
What is the healthy brain stem associated with
- breathing
- steady heart rate
What would a TBI in the frontal lobe result in
- language difficulty
- lack of focus
- irritability
What would a TBI in the temporal lobe result in
- problems with long and short term memory
What would a TBI in the occipital lobe result in
- blind spots
- blurred vision
What would a TBI in the parietal lobe result in
- spatial misperception
- difficulty reading
What would a TBI in the cerebellum result in
- difficulty walking
- slurred speech
What would a TBI in the brain stem result in
- changes in breath
- difficulty swallowing
What are the two types of traumatic head injury
- Open-head injury (penetrating injury, including fractures and bone segments)
- Closed head injury (blunt injury, including stroke)
What does the severity of open head injury depend on
areas affected
When is open head injury fatal
- when there is damage to both hemispheres, ventricles and multiple lobes
Who is more at risk for open heady injury
- children and infants
What is the process of closed head injury
- consists of a coup and contra-coup
- first point of contact= coup
What does a coup and a contra-coup usually result in
- subdural haematoma due to close head injury
What is a subdural haematoma
- bleeding under dura matter
Name the three types of axonal injury
- Twisted axon pulled away at synapse
- Torn axon
- Broken axon
What secondary damage can a closed head injury result in
○ Immediate leak of neurotransmitters
○ Lack of oxygen and glucose to the brain
○ Leads to inflammation
Name the outcomes of closed head brain injury
- Bleeding (subdural haematoma)
- Tearing (tearing and twisting of brain in the skull)
- Sheering (secondary damage)
Describe the pathology of the BBB in TBI
- secondary damage caused by severe closed head injury
- disruption of BBB
- cascade of neurochemical events
- potassium and sodium
- chloride
- glutamate
- Swelling and inflammation from tissue damage
- increases pressure on the brain in turn leading to more damage
What are the treatment options available for a leaky brain
- no known drug can stop the leak of neurotransmitter or the swelling of the brain
- chilling of the brain is the only known treatment that works
Why does chilling of the brain work as an efficient treatment for swelling and inflammation
- Excitotoxicity is temperature sensitive
- high temperatures are required as a catalyst for neurotransmitters to cascade
- a lower temperature prevents the aforementioned from occuring
What diagnostic imaging techniques can be used to scan for TBI
- CT scan
- X-ray
- PET scan
- MRI (functional or resting state)
- Diffusion tensor imaging
- EEG
What is secondary impact syndrome
- life threatening
- result of back-to-back concussions
- results in a loss of autoregulation of blood supply:
- vascular engoregement
- increased intracranial pressure
- rapid brain stem failure
What is Dementia Pugilistica
- punch drunk syndrome
- boxing dementia
- similar to CTE
- associated with memory loss and slurred speech
What is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
- CTE
- Evidence that there’s a link between traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases
- higher risk for people with Apoe4 gene
- Can be diagnosed by tau protein aggregation
- Also found in hippocampus (classic area for AD)
- Repeated hits to the head leads to aggregation of Tau