Nervous system part 2

Epinephrine and norepinephrine are very similar neurotransmitters and hormones. While epinephrine has slightly more of an effect on your heart, norepinephrine has more of an effect on your blood vessels. Both play a role in your body’s natural fight-or-flight response to stress.

A hormone (which you might know as adrenaline). It has been linked to mood, memory, and stress.

“calming” chemical, mood modifier, linked to depression and appetite management, sleep, memory, and, most recently, decision-making behaviours.

Dopamine: “pleasure chemical” released when mammals receive a reward in response to their behaviour.

anxiety or depression

Dopamine

Serotonin

Neurodegenerative disorders are primarily characterized by neuron loss. The most common neurodegenerative disorders include Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Although there are several medicines currently approved for managing neurodegenerative disorders, a large majority of them only help with associated symptoms.

Alzheimer’s disease affects brain function, memory, and behaviour. Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of dementia, a general term for memory loss and other cognitive abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life. In most people with Alzheimer’s, symptoms first appear later in life.

• Cerebral palsy affects the cerebral motor cortex. • This is the part of the brain that directs muscle movement. • In fact, the first part of the name, cerebral, means having to do with the brain. The second part, palsy, means weakness or problems with using the muscles. CP is caused by abnormal/irregular brain development or damage to the developing brain in the parts of the brain that control movement. It affects a person’s ability to control his or her muscles. This usually happens before a child is born, but it can occur at birth or in early infancy, when the brain is still developing. In many cases the exact cause of cerebral palsy is not known. Most individuals with cerebral palsy are born with it (85-90%), but those that acquire it in early childhood typically get it from head injury, environmental factors, and infections.

an autoimmune disorder leading to demyelination of nerve cells and disruption of nerve impulses

Ischemic and Hemorrhagic

These are strokes caused by blockage of an artery (or, in rare instances, a vein). About 87% of all strokes are ischemic. Ischemic stroke is by far the most common type of stroke, accounting for a large majority of strokes.

These are strokes caused by bleeding. About 13% of all strokes are hemorrhagic.

Anoxia Lack of oxygen Hypoxia Low oxygen

Thrombotic Embolic

occurs when a blood clot, called a thrombus, blocks an artery to the brain and stops blood flow.

caused by a blood clot that forms elsewhere in the body (embolus) and travels through the bloodstream to the brain. often result from heart disease or heart surgery and occur rapidly and without any warning signs.

A condition that causes sudden weakness in the muscles on one side of the face. Often the weakness is short-term (temporary) and improves over weeks. The weakness makes half of the face appear to droop. Smiles are one-sided, and the eye on the affected side is hard to close.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a fatal type of motor neuron disease. It is characterized by progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the spinal cord and brain. It’s often called Lou Gehrig’s disease, after a famous baseball player who died from the disease.

MS damages the myelin sheaths in the brain and spinal cord which prohibits them from sending out signals to motor neurons in the body. ALS causes the death of the motor neurons.

Huntington’s disease

Parkinson’s disease

Stroke