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Flashcards in Domains of Function Deck (24)
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1
Q

Intelligence

A

No unitary definition or measurement
Includes problem solving, abstract thinking, comprehension, learning, ability to adapt to circumstances
Also non-cognitive (e.g., emotional I)
Models:
g (general) factor (Spearman)
Cattell-Horn-Carroll includes Gf-Gc (fluid and crystallized intelligence) and three-statum theory (Carroll; 8 broad and 70 specific abilities)

2
Q

Intelligence-associated Disorders

A

ID (formerly MR):
IQ ca 2 SDs below the mean, deficits in adaptive skills, onset before age 18

Dementia
Syndrome describing a decline in cognition/multiple areas of cognitive impairment resulting in impairment in functioning
Decline in IQ may not be evident until later stages

Savantism
ID/ASD + remarkable narrow talents
May be congenital or acquired following CNS disease/injury
M: F ratio 6:1
Superior memory most common
Can involve superior calculations, language, or artistic abilities

3
Q

Attention and Processing Speed

A

Attention - process by which we receive and processing incoming information
Closely associated with EF and WM (ability to rehearse/manipulate information for up to several minutes, what is not rehearsed, is lost)

Interconnecting attention networks (Posner):
Posterior - orienting and shifting attention
Anterior - detecting stimuli from sensory events or memory
Both influenced by alerting network (Ascending Reticular Activating System)

Processing speed - speed of performing mental activities, affects attention
Other influencing factors: arousal, motivation/effort

4
Q

Attention Types & Measures

A

Span - passive attention - Digit Span, Corsi blocks

Focused - directing attention - Digit Symbol, Coding, SDMT

Selective - choosing information from distractors - Cancellation

Sustained (vigilance) - maintaining attention - CPT

Alternating (shifting ) - TMT B

Divided (multitasking) - PASAT

5
Q

Disorders of Attention

A

Deliruim - waxing/waning of attention, increased distractibility, confusion
Attention aspects affected: span and arousal

ADHD - developmental disorder, inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity 
Executive aspects (self-regulation)

Neglect (hemispatial inattention)
Impaired awareness contralateral to brain lesion (typically left due to RH lesion), not result of primary sensory deficits
Aspects: selective and spatial focused attention
+ anosognosia (denial of illness)
+ asomatognosia (denial of body part)
lesions in temporal-parietal region
Sensory neglect - inattention to space
Motor - failure to response to stimuli in CL space

TBI - often reduced arousal, increased distractibility, decreased executive attention, and processing speed

Depression, anxiety, fatigue, sleep deprivation, medications

6
Q

Language and Aphasia

A

Language -phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics
Speech - oral expression of lg

Models:
Localization (Broca, Wernicke)
Association/connectionist (Geschwind)
Cognitive - other cognitive factors are important for lg (abstract reasoning)

Aphasia - acquired lg disorders
Dysarthria/dysphonia =/ aphasia
Etiology - stroke (40%), neoplasm, intracranial tumor, infection, TBI, neurodegenerative

7
Q

Aphasia Assessment

A

Aphasia Assessment:
Spontaneous speech (form and content)
Form (fluent/nonfluent) - rate, length of phrases, initiation
Content - semantic + grammatical structure

Comprehension - commands, complex ideational material
Spoken and written lg, semantic/lexical (posterior areas) and syntactic (anterior)

Repetition - start with single words, increase complexity

Naming (anomia) - spontaneous, confrontation
Observed in all aphasia syndromes but vary
Nonfluent - problems with intiation
Fluent - selection

Reading (alexia) - matching words to pictures if expressive aphasia
Can occur in all aphasias and in isolation

Writing (agraphia) - to dictation, based on visual input, spontaneous
Typically occurs with aphasia/alexia

8
Q

Aphasia Syndromes 1

A

Nonfluent - Broca’s - anterior lg centers
Sparse verbal output, poor repetition, impaired naming, preserved comprehension
Posterior portion of inferior frontal gyrus

Perisylvian
Fluent - Wernicke - posterior lg
Fluent but nonsensical output (paraphasic errors, circumlocution), impaired comprehension, poor repetition
Posterior superior portion of left temporal lobe

Conduction (associative) - impaired repetition, fluent speech with phonemic paraphasias, impaired reading, preserved comprehension
Arcuate fasciculus, disconnection syndrome

9
Q

Aphasia Syndromes 2

A

Extrasylvian
Nonfluent
Transcortical motor aphasia (TMA) - similar to Broca, preserved repetition
Anterior to Broca’s area, supplemental motor area

Mixed transcortical aphasia (MTA) - resembles global aphasia with preserved repetition, typically due to hypoxic brain injury
Vascular borderzone both in frontal and parietal

Fluent
Trancortical sensory aphasia (TSA) - resembles Wernicke’s, preserved repetition
Junction of parietal, temporal, and occipital regions, angulat gyrus

10
Q

Aphasia Syndromes 3

A

Nonlocalizing
Anomic aphasia - primary problem with WFD, problems with reading and writing, preserved comprehension and repetition
Dominant angular gyrus

Global aphasia - impairment in all lg functions
Entire perisylvian region, due to MCA occlusion

Subcortical motor aphasia syndrome (aphemia) - mutism followed by motor speech abnormalities, fluent or nonfluent, near normal repetition
Comprehension, naming, reading, and writing may or may not be impaired

Alexia
WIthout agraphia (pure word blindness) - selective loss of reading ability, can write but not read own writing
Disconnection syndrome, left occipital area, inferior portion of corpus callosum splenium

With agraphia - loss of ability to read and produce written language, speech and comprehension preserved
Angular gyrus

Pure word deafness -loss of auditory speech comprehension
Able to speak, read, and write but not repeat
Bilateral temporal lobes, Heschl’s gyrus on left and WM connecting to auditory association area on the right

11
Q

Nonlanguage Auditory Syndromes

A

Agnosia for sounds - inability to recognize meaning of nonverbal sounds, often with pure word deafness

Agnosia for music (amusia) - inabiltiy to recognize meaning of musical sounds, including rhythm

Aprosodia
Expressive, contralateral to Broca’s area
Repective - CL to Wernicke’s
Nondominant hemisphere

12
Q

Visuospatial

A

Ventral (“what”) stream
Processing objects, faces, colors, letters
Occipital-temporal association cortex

Dorsal (“where”) stream
Processing spatial relationships
Parietal-occipital association cortex

13
Q

Agnosias 1

A

Visual object agnosia - inability to visually recognize meaning of an object
Apperceptive - disrupted perception, diffuse
Associative - inability to access stored info re meaning, disconnection of visual and language areas

Prosopagnosia - inability to recognize faces
Bilateral, inferior occipital-temporal junction pr right involving splenium

Color agnosia
L or BL occipital-temporal areas

14
Q

Agnosias 2

A

Constructional apraxia - inability to construct shapes and designs
R or BL parietal lesions

Dressing apraxia - isolated impairment in dressing, may be part of neglect
R P-O junction

Achromatopsia - inablity to see colors
BL calcarine cortex, L > R

Spatial acalculia - difficulty with spatial aspects of calculation
R parietal lobe

15
Q

Memory

A

Encoding (depends on attention), retention, retrieval (recall and recognitoin)

Models
Information processing: encoding, storage, consolidation, and retrieval

3-Stage: sensory (iconic/visual and echoic/auditory 1-2 sec), short-term (7 +/- 2), long-term, remote

Memory types: declarative (explicit, conscious retrieval) vs non-declarative (implicit or procedural, without awareness), semantic (facts) vs episodic (autobiographical)

Interference: proactive (previously learned interferes with new) and retroactive (recent interfering with old)

16
Q

Amnestic disorders 1

A

Amnesia - isolated loss of memory function

Retrograde - amnesia for events prior to accident or illness; RIbot’s law - oldest memories most resistant, temporal gradient, correlation with extent of hippocampal pathology

Anterograde - inability to learn new information

Transient Global Amnesia - profound AA and variable RA, acute onset, hours to days, due to hypoperfusion of mesial temporal areas or ECT

Anoxia/hypoxia - results in dense amnesia, typically AA, prserved insight, damage to MTL & CA1 of hippocampus

Ant Comm Artery Aneurysm - “frontal amnesia” with comfabulation, attention problems, disorientation, lack of insight, damage to basal forebrain, striatum, and frontal systems

17
Q

Amnestic disorders 2

A

Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome - both AA and RA, confabulation, poor insight + gait ataxia, oculomotor palsy, and encephalopathy, due to chronic alcohol use and thiamine deficiency

Herpes encephalopathy - amnesia, aphasia, agnosia, herpes virus infection affecting M and Inf TL and amygdala

Surgical ablation - BL temporal resection (H.M.), severe AA, preserved insight

PCA stroke - amnesia + visual deficits, agnosia, hemianopic alexia, MTL and posterior occipital lobes

Dementias
AD affects encoding - DON’T AGREE, this is an amnestic disorder affecting retention

Subcortical - affects retrieval AND ENCODING

18
Q

Brain systems

A

Hippocampal pathway (medial, Papez circuit)
Entorhinal ctx, fornix, mammillary bodies, mammillothalamic tract, cingulate ctx
Hypoxia and anoxia

Amygdaloid pathway (lateral)
Amygdala, dorsal medial thalamus, DM ctx
Herpes encephalitis, PTSD

Diencephalon
Ant and DM nucleus of thalamus, fornix, mamillary bodies
Korsakoff’s

Basal forebrain
Medial septal nucleus, diagonal band of Broca, nucleus basalis of Meynert
AD, ACoA aneurysm

Cortex
M and ant temporal lobe, frontal lobe
Surgical ablation, TBI, herpes, anoxia, PCA infarct

19
Q

Executive Functioning

A

Multifaceted, overlaps with attention, memory, lg, personality, emotional and social functioning

Three-syndrome model (Cummings):
Dorsolateral prefrontal syndrome (dysexecutive) - poor problem solving, word generation, sequencing, abulia, perseveration

Orbitofrontal (inderior/ventral frontal) - emotional lability, disinhibition, personality change, distractibility

Medial frontal/cingulate - decreased initiation + amnesia, incontinence, leg weakness

Motor circuit (supplementary motor area)
Oculomotor circuit (frontal eye fields)
20
Q

Disorders of EF

A
Cortical dementias (FTD, Lewy body disease, Pick's)
Subcortical (dementias due to Parkinson's, Huntington's)

TBI involving diffuse frontal and diencephalon damage

Focal lesions as a result of brain tumors or vascular lesions

21
Q

Disorders of sensorimotor abilities

A
Finger agnosia (special case of autotopagnosia - inability to identify parts of body)
L inf parietal lobe, angular gyrus

R-L disorientation
L inf parietal lobe, angular gyrus

Somatagnosia - disruption in recognition of body schema
Astereognosia - impairment in object recognition through touch
Posterior parietal, rolandic gyri

Asomatognosia - disrupted knowledge/sense of one’s body and bodily condition
BL parietal lobes, R inf parietal, or dominant angular gyrus

22
Q

Apraxia 1

A

Inability to carry out purposeful skilled movement
Common in aphasic syndromes
Anosognosia common

Assess transitive (with object) and intransitive (without object) movements

Ideational - lost concept of gesture, sequencing errors
BL non-focal LH lesions, posterior temporal-parietal junction

Ideomotor - unable to performn gestures on command but can do spontaneously, body part substitution errors
L inf parietal lobe, suppl motor area, corpus callosum

Limb-kinetic - inability to move hands or legs, not related to skilled movement, more often asymmetric and affects distal movement
Lesions of pyramidal motor symptoms

23
Q

Apraxia 2

A

Apraxia of speech - impairment in planning of movements for speech protection, result in articulation errors
Developmental and acquired

Buccofacial apraxia - diffiuclty performing movements of face, mouth, and tongue

Gait apraxia - inability to use legs appropriately for walking, ok when lying flat

24
Q

Neuropsychiatric

A

Emotional dysregulation/personality changes
Associated with various neurologic conditions, including PD, HD, MS, CVA, dementia, TBI, etc.

Emotional syndromes:
Anosodiaphoria - no distress in context of impairment
R parietal or frontal

Alexithymia - inability to understand, process, and describe emotions
RH

Emotional lability - fluctuations, increased reactivity
OF area, limbic system

Pseudobulbar affect - extreme involuntary responses to mild stimulation
PB palsy or damage to upper motor neuron corticobulbar tract