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33 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is the difference between a benign and a malignant tumour? |
Benign means it has clear borders and is likely to be removable (this is encapsulation). Malignant tumours have no clear boundaries and reach out into other areas (remember what the slides look like!) |
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Malignant tumours shed cells, which travel through through the bloodstream as 'seeds' and affect other parts of the body. What are these seeds called? |
Metastases Nasty little swines. We had a slide of the brain with little 'hot spots' of these all over the place. They suck. |
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What is the problem with a benign tumour, if left unchecked? |
Basically, it's about compression. It's going to directly occupy space in the brain, destroying brain tissue. It also will cause pressure that crushes the brain against the skull, and can indirectly block the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). |
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What is the deal with the fresh hell that is a malignant tumour? What does it do? |
This one likes infiltration. Malignant tumours shed cells that invade surrounding areas, destroying all cells in their path. They can arrive from elsewhere in the body- cells with high metabolic turnover are more likely to malfunction and become cancerous |
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What is a glioblastoma? |
It's a brain tumour caused by a malfunctioning glial cell, most likely an astrocyte. |
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What are the characteristics of a glioblastoma? |
It's malignant and fast-growing, but sensitive to radiation. Incidentally, neurons can also spazz out (don't write that on the exam) and you then get a neuroblastoma. Different thing, every bit as horrible. |
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How does chemotherapy work, in simple terms? |
It is horrendous to go through chemo, but although it weakens your healthy cells, the cancer cells are weaker, so you should survive where the cancer does not. |
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Strokes come in 2 main forms- a Cerebral Haemorrhage or a Cerebral Ischemia. What's the difference? |
The Cerebral Haemorrhage is caused by high blood pressure, and a blood vessel bursts in the brain. Boom. A Cerbral Ischemia is a disruption of blood supply to the brain, and this is more common. |
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Why are women at an advantage when it comes to the odds of having strokes and heart disease? |
Because they produce more oestrogen, which has a preventative effect against arterial plaques forming |
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What's it called when a blood vessel splits (intentionally, I mean) into 2 or more channels? |
Bifurcation Tip- 'Bi' means 'two', and 'furcation' sounds a bit like 'fork', like a fork in a road, which is exactly what the slide looked like |
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Explain how Atherosclerotic Plaque forms... |
As your blood whizzes around, it smashes into the junctions where bifurcation takes place, and where there's enough impact (i.e. your blood pressure is high, due to stress) this will make craters in the artery wall. Also when you're stressed, you release epinephrine which, in turn, releases sugars into the blood (fast energy source innit). These are gunky and sticky and get packed into the craters, making a crappy mess. |
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What are thrombuses are why are they totally rubbish? |
They are plaques that move (yay!). Increased blood pressure, e.g. caused by stress, shifts it. If it jams in a coronary artery- HEART ATTACK! If it jams a blood vessel in the brain- A STROKE! |
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The shrinkage of what part of the brain (with age) is correlated with memory decline ? |
The hippocampus Hippos never forget, except when they shrink, obviously.* *This may not be in any way accurate, but I promise it's the hippocampus |
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Alois Alzheimer identified a senile demetia that can appear before 65yrs. What does 'senile' mean? |
It means it gets worse (it's progressive). |
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(I can't do a 'beta' symbol on the free version of Cram. Just forgive me and imagine it's right, and stop bloody whining.) B-amyloid plaques are bundles of proteins, and just being anywhere near brain cells causes something that prevents them from being able to support themselves, so the cells die. What happens inside the cells? |
Neurofibrillary tangles form- these are twisted fibres within cells |
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What happens to B-amyloid plaques (protein fragments) in a healthy and/or less-susceptible brain? |
The glial cells in your brain will clean them up, like brain mouthwash (or something). |
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As per the cholinergic theory of AD (Alzheimer's Disease), a lack of what results in B- amyloid plaque building up? |
Acetylcholine. If levels are low, this causes basal forebrain problems and B-amyloid plaques to form, which obviously isn't great. |
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Describe the key elements of Alzheimer's Disease (please) |
-Severe degeneration of the hippocampus (memory) -Amygdala and many areas of cortex also affected (frontal and temporal) |
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In the context of AD, what is a delusion? Also, what is it not? |
It's not a hallucination. It's a belief that's false and completely unshakable despite undeniable and obvious proof to the contrary It can be a symptom of other conditions, e.g. dementia |
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"My husband is an imposter. It looks like him and acts like him, but it isn't him" What is this delusion called and why does it happen? |
It's Capgras Syndrome. It happens because the part of the brain responsible for the feeling of warmth and emotional connection that you have when you see a loved one is damaged. Without this feeling the affected person assumes they are sensing that a loved one is an imposter. |
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What is a confabulation? |
It's a fabrication, used to 'fill in' gaps in memory. It's usually plausible, e.g. "How did you get here?" The person can't remember but knows they would usually get the bus, so they say "bus". It's an invention with no ill intent, but to remember this word... it's a con, and it's fabulous :-) |
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Damage in a particular brain region always always causes confabulations. Where? |
According to Feinburg and Keenan (2004), people with delusions tend to have right hemisphere damage, and right frontal lobe damage almost always produce confabulations |
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What's the difference between a semantic and an episodic memory? |
A semantic memory is a fact about your past, or something you can just know, e.g. name of your primary school. An episodic memory is a story about you, like the time you called your teacher 'mum' at school |
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What is dementia? What is AD, relative to dementia? |
Dementia is a symptom of a deterioration in mental ability. AD is one possible cause of dementia- remember, though, that although strokes (and dehydration!) can cause dementia, this isn't senile dementia, as it doesn't necessarily get worse |
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Say some stuff about Parkinson's Disease (PD)... |
- It's a movement disorder, but it's also an inability to learn new skills - there's widespread neural degeneration, specifically in the substantia nigra/nigrostratial system - it's 2.5 times more prevalent in men, and affects 1% over 65yrs |
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What does the substantia nigra actually do? |
It secretes dopamine. It can be degraded by 80% before PD symptoms start up Nigrostratial pathway: from substantia nigra to the Caudate nucleus & Putamen (together known as the Striatum- look at slides) |
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What type of movement is difficult for a PD patient? |
Planned movement is the issue, like the conscious decision to stand up from a chair. In an emergency, the instinctive urge to move is a different thing and isn't usually impaired |
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How does the retropulsion test work? |
It's an assessment of ability to right oneself. The assessor pulls back gently on the patient's shoulders, and their response indicates severity of symptoms. It can be anything from taking a step or two to right themselves, or falling over entirely |
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PD causes the familiar 'resting tremor', where the patient constantly shakes gently. Why? |
Purposeful movement is less about moving, and more about releasing the inhibition to move. Dopamine is important to this inhibition normally, so the dopamine deficit cause the tremors |
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What does your basal ganglia do normally, when you're doing something you've done before? |
It moderates activities initiated elsewhere, and activates your expertise, so if you can do it better, you will. PD knocks this out (there is a slide for this) |
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Executive dysfunction is mild cognitive impairment. Remember the cards and the weather forecast (see slides)? Why do anterograde amnesiacs get better at the game, even though they can't remember the rules, but PD patients can't grasp it at all? |
Because anterograde amnesiacs (remember, from cog?) can learn new skills, they just don't remember doing it, or how. Amnesiacs have been taught piano and they are totally mystified by their ability to play it! PD patients can't learn the game at all, so although they can remember what happened (unlike the amnesiacs), they will never make sense of the game |
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Long-term memory is of two types. What are the types, how are they defined, and which of the two is a problem for PD patients? |
Declarative- things you know, that you can tell others Non-declarative- things you know that you can show by doing PD patients struggle with non-declarative memories |
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Remember the Space Fortress thing (Vol et al., 2011)? The PPs got better at it after 20hrs of training, unsurprisingly. What was more active in the brain in the PPs after the training, as opposed to before the training? |
The striatum. When you play for the first time, it does little, because you aren't an expert in it. After the training, you have acquired expertise, so the striatum is more active. This is damaged and therefore ineffective in PD |
