Chapter 10 - Brain Damage and Neuroplasticity

Question 1

Tumor or Neoplasm

Answer 1

“new growth” - a mass of cells that grows independently of the rest of the body

Question 2

Encapsulated Tumors

Answer 2

tumors that grow within their own membrane, easy to identify on a CT scan, influence the function of the brain only by the pressure they exert on surrounding tissue and almost always benign tumors

Question 2

Meningiomas

Answer 2

tumors found in the human brain, grow between the meninges, the three membranes that cover the central nervous system - its an encapsulated tumor

Question 3

Benign Tumors

Answer 3

tumors that are surgically removable with little risk of further growth in the body

Question 4

Infiltrating tumors

Answer 4

grow diffusely through surrounding tissue; they are usually malignant tumors

Question 5

Malignant Tumors

Answer 5

difficult to remove or destroy them completely, and any cancerous tissue that remains after surgery usually continues to grow

Question 6

Gliomas

Answer 6

brain tumors that develop from glial cells - infiltrating tumors, rapidly growing, and unfortunately the most common form of malignant brain tumors

Question 7

Metastatic Tumors

Answer 7

grow from infiltrating cells that are carried to the brain by the bloodstream from some other part of the body

Question 8

Strokes

Answer 8

udden-onset cerebrovascular disorders that cause brain damage; stroke is the fifth leading cause of death, the major cause of neurological dysfunction, and a leading cause of adult disability.

Question 9

Infarct

Answer 9

area of dead or dying tissue produced by a stroke

Question 10

Penumbra

Answer 10

area surrounding the infarct; tissue in the penum- bra may recover or die in the ensuing days, depending on a variety of factors.

the primary goal of treatment following stroke is to save the penumbra

Question 11

Cerebral hemorrhage

Answer 11

bleeding in the brain occurs when a cerebral blood vessel ruptures and blood seeps into the surrounding neural tissue and damages it; common cause is bursting aneurysms

Question 12

Aneurysm

Answer 12

pathological balloonlike dilation that forms in the wall of an artery at a point where the elasticity of the artery wall is defective; can be congenital (present at birth) or can result from exposure to vascular poi- sons or infection

Question 13

Cerebral ischemia

Answer 13

disruption of the blood supply to an area of the brain often caused by a blood clot. three main causes of cerebral ischemia are thrombosis, embolism, and arteriosclerosis

Question 14

Thrombosis

Answer 14

a plug called a thrombus is formed and blocks blood flow at the site of its formation. A thrombus may be composed of a blood clot, fat, oil, an air bubble, tumor cells, or any combination

Question 15

Embolism

Answer 15

carried by the blood from a larger vessel, where it was formed, to a smaller one, where it becomes lodged; in essence, an embolus is just a thrombus that has taken a trip

Question 16

Arteriosclerosis

Answer 16

walls of blood vessels thicken and the channels narrow, usually as the result of fat deposits; this narrowing can eventually lead to complete blockage of the blood vessels

Question 17

Ischemia-induced brain damage

Answer 17

takes a while to develop; oes not occur equally in all parts of the brain—particularly susceptible are neurons in certain areas of the hippocampus

Question 18

Glutamate

Answer 18

brain’s most prevalent excitatory neurotransmitter, plays a major role in ischemia- induced brain damage

Question 19

NMDA (N-methyl-D- aspartate) receptors

Answer 19

glutamate receptors that cause blood vessel becomes blocked, many of the blood-deprived neurons become overactive and release excessive quantities of glutamate. The glutamate in turn overactivates glutamate receptors in the membranes of postsynaptic neurons

Question 20

Closed-head Traumatic brain injury (TBI)

Answer 20

blows that do not penetrate the skull

Question 21

Contusions

Answer 21

closed-head TBIs that occur when the brain slams against the inside of the skull.

involve damage to the cerebral circulatory system. Such damage produces internal hemorrhaging, which in turn produces a localized collection of blood in the brain—in other words, a bruised brain

Question 22

Subdural Hematoma

Answer 22

“puddle” of blood; may occur during contusions

Question 23

Contrecoup Injuries

Answer 23

blow that causes the brain to strike the inside of the skull on the other side of the head

Question 24

mild TBI (mTBI)

Answer 24

blow to the head with no evidence of contrusion

Question 25

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)

Answer 25

dementia (general intellectual deterioration) and cerebral scarring often observed in boxers, rugby players, American football players (see Figure 10.7), and other individuals who have experienced repeated mTBIs

Question 26

The Case of Junior Sean

Answer 26

suffered many mTBIs; often experienced severe headaches and would go straight to his darkened bedroom; heavy consumption of alcohol, reckless business and financial decisions, and gambling; requent violent outbursts that were completely out of character for him; at the age of 43, Junior Seau shot him- self. He left no note—no explanation; autopsy of Seau’s brain revealed that he met criteria for a diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy

Question 27

Encephalitis

Answer 27

invasion of the brain by microorganisms is a brain infection, and the resulting inflammation

Question 28

Bacterial Infections

Answer 28

leads to formation of cerebral abscesses (pockets of pus in the brain); major cause of meningitis. syphilis is a bacterial brain infection.

Question 29

Types of Brain Infections

Answer 29

bacterial infection and viral infection

Question 30

Types of Viral Infections

Answer 30

have a particular affinity for neural tissue (ex. rabies) and those that attack neural tissue but have no greater affinity for it than for other tissues (ex. mumps and herpes)

Question 31

Toxic Psychosis

Answer 31

chronic mental illness produced by a neurotoxin such as heavy metals like mercury and lead; hat makers commonly developed toxic psychosis from the mercury employed in the preparation of the felt used to make hats

Question 32

Down syndrome

Answer 32

genetic accident associated with Down syndrome occurs in the mother during ovulation, when an extra chromosome 21 is created in the egg. Thus, when the egg is fertilized, there are three chromosome 21s, rather than two, in the zygote; leads to characteristic disfigurement, intellectual disability, early-onset Alzheimer’s disease

Question 33

Apoptosis

Answer 33

genetic programs for destroying themselves; eliminates extra neurons, and plays a role in brain damage if cells are not damaged too severely, they will attempt to marshal enough resources to destroy themselves via apoptosis

Question 34

Necrosis

Answer 34

passive cell death resulting from injury

Question 35

Epilepsy

Answer 35

a brain disease where nerve cells don't signal properly, which causes seizures

Question 36

Convulsions

Answer 36

motor seizures; often involve tremors (clonus), rigidity (tonus), and loss of both balance and consciousness

Question 37

Epileptic auras

Answer 37

peculiar psychological changes just before a seizure; a bad smell, a specific thought, a vague feeling of familiarity, a hallucination, or a tightness of the chest provides clues concerning location of epileptic focus and warn patient of impending convulsion

Question 38

Focal Seizure

Answer 38

seizure that does not involve the entire brain. simple seizures are focal seizures whose symptoms are primarily sensory or motor or both; they are sometimes called Jacksonian seizures after the famous 19th-century neurologist Hughlings Jackson complex seizures often begin in the temporal lobes and usually do not spread out of them. Accordingly, those who experience them are often said to have temporal lobe epilepsy International League Against Epilepsy (ILEA) discourages the use of the categories "complex" and "simple."

Question 39

Generalized seizures

Answer 39

involve the entire brain. tonic-clonic seizure: loss of consciousness, loss of equi- librium, and a violent tonic-clonic convulsion (that is, a convul- sion involving both tonus and clonus). absence seizure: not associated with convul- sions; their primary behavioral symptom is a loss of con- sciousness associated with a cessation of ongoing behavior, a vacant look, and sometimes fluttering eyelids

Question 40

Parkinson’s disease

Answer 40

movement disorder of middle and old age that affects 1–2 percent of the population over the age of 65; slightly more prevalent in males than in females. severe in the substantia nigra—the midbrain nucleus whose neurons project via the nigrostriatal pathway to the striatum of the basal ganglia

Question 41

Huntington’s disease

Answer 41

progressive motor disorder, but, unlike Parkinson’s disease, it is rare (1 in 7,500), it has a simple genetic basis, and it is always associated with severe dementia; passed from generation to generation by a single mutated dominant gene, called huntingtin. The protein it codes for is known as the huntingtin protei