scholarly journals The anatomy of pain and suffering in the brain and its clinical implications

Author(s):  
Dirk De Ridder ◽  
Divya Adhia ◽  
Sven Vanneste
2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvette D. Hyter

Abstract Complex trauma resulting from chronic maltreatment and prenatal alcohol exposure can significantly affect child development and academic outcomes. Children with histories of maltreatment and those with prenatal alcohol exposure exhibit remarkably similar central nervous system impairments. In this article, I will review the effects of each on the brain and discuss clinical implications for these populations of children.


1969 ◽  
Vol 21 (02) ◽  
pp. 294-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
H Mihara ◽  
T Fujii ◽  
S Okamoto

SummaryBlood was injected into the brains of dogs to produce artificial haematomas, and paraffin injected to produce intracerebral paraffin masses. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and peripheral blood samples were withdrawn at regular intervals and their fibrinolytic activities estimated by the fibrin plate method. Trans-form aminomethylcyclohexane-carboxylic acid (t-AMCHA) was administered to some individuals. Genera] relationships were found between changes in CSF fibrinolytic activity, area of tissue damage and survival time. t-AMCHA was clearly beneficial to those animals given a programme of administration. Tissue activator was extracted from the brain tissue after death or sacrifice for haematoma examination. The possible role of tissue activator in relation to haematoma development, and clinical implications of the results, are discussed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Barbachan Mansur ◽  
Elisa Brietzke

Metabolic abnormalities are frequent in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (BD), leading to a high prevalence of diabetes and metabolic syndrome in this population. Moreover, mortality rates among patients are higher than in the general population, especially due to cardiovascular diseases. Several neurobiological systems involved in energy metabolism have been shown to be altered in both illnesses; however, the cause of metabolic abnormalities and how they relate to schizophrenia and BD pathophysiology are still largely unknown. The "selfish brain" theory is a recent paradigm postulating that, in order to maintain its own energy supply stable, the brain modulates energy metabolism in the periphery by regulation of both allocation and intake of nutrients. We hypothesize that the metabolic alterations observed in these disorders are a result of an inefficient regulation of the brain energy supply and its compensatory mechanisms. The selfish brain theory can also expand our understanding of stress adaptation and neuroprogression in schizophrenia and BD, and, overall, can have important clinical implications for both illnesses.


Author(s):  
Yael Dai ◽  
Inge-Marie Eigsti

This chapter reviews strengths and weaknesses in executive function (EF) domains, including inhibition, working memory, flexibility, fluency, and planning, in adolescents (age 13–19) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Given the dramatic developmental changes in the brain regions that support EF during the period of adolescence, it is critical to evaluate which EF abilities show a distinct profile during this period. As this chapter will demonstrate, youth with ASD show deficits across all domains of EF, particularly in complex tasks that include arbitrary instructions. We describe the fundamental measures for assessing skills in each domain and discuss limitations and future directions for research, as well as clinical implications of these findings for working with youth with ASD.


Author(s):  
Colin Ferrie ◽  
Daniel Warren ◽  
Atul Tyagi

Prenatal and postnatal development of the brain is controlled by a multiplicity of genetic mechanisms. Genetic abnormalities and environmental insults are responsible for a bewildering array of developmental disorders associated with brain malformations. Classic embryology remains key to understanding these, and an appreciation of the processes of gastrulation, dorsal and ventral induction, neuronal differentiation, proliferation, histogenesis, and migration and myelination will help the neurosurgeon understand the conditions likely to be encountered in clinical practice. In this chapter the more common and many less common brain malformations are reviewed. These include anencephaly, holoprosencephaly, septo-optic dysplasia, schizencephaly, grey matter heterotopias, lissencephaly/pachygyria, polymicrogyria, porencephaly, developmental anomalies of the corpus callosum, microcephaly, hemimegalencephaly, and posterior fossa malformations. The emphasis is on promoting an understanding of concepts and on clinical implications, rather than on imparting detail.


Author(s):  
J.A. Kaltenbach ◽  
D.A. Godfrey

Tinnitus most commonly begins with alterations of input from the ear resulting from cochlear trauma or overstimulation of the ear. Because the cochlear nucleus is the first processing center in the brain receiving cochlear input, it is the first brainstem station to adjust to this modified input from the cochlea. Research published over the last 30 years demonstrates changes in neural circuitry and activity in the cochlear nucleus that are associated with and may be the origin of the signals that give rise to tinnitus percepts at the cortical level. This chapter summarizes what is known about these disturbances and their relationships to tinnitus. It also summarizes the mechanisms that trigger tinnitus-related disturbances and the anatomical, chemical, neurophysiological, and biophysical defects that underlie them. It concludes by highlighting some major controversies that research findings have generated and discussing the clinical implications the findings have for the future treatment of tinnitus.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikita Agarwal ◽  
Aditi Kathpalia ◽  
Nithin Nagaraj

AbstractCharacterizing consciousness, the inner subjective feeling that is present in every experience, is a hard problem in neuroscience, but has important clinical implications. A leading neuro-scientific approach to understanding consciousness is to measure the complex causal neural interactions in the brain. Elucidating the complex causal interplay between cortical neural interactions and the subsequent network computations is very challenging. In this study, we propose a novel quantitative measure of consciousness - Network Causal Activity - using a recently proposed Compression-Complexity Causality measure to analyze electrocorticographic signals from the lateral cortex of four monkeys during two states of consciousness (awake and anaesthesia). Our results suggest that Network Causal Activity is consistently higher in the awake state as compared with anaesthesia state for all the monkeys.


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