The Language of Pathological Brain Damage
This is where when people say,“Oh that happens to all of us,” I politely reply, “Me too, how many times a day does it happen to you?”
Aphasia
Difficulty in producing or comprehending speech not produced by deafness or a simple motor deficit; caused by brain damage.
Anomia:
Difficulty in finding (remembering) the appropriate word to describe an object, action, or attribute; one of the symptoms of aphasia. Persons with this problem often can speak fluently but have to use other words to describe familiar objects.
Circumlocution:
A strategy by which people with anomia find alternative ways to say something when they are unable to think of the most appropriate word.
Acalculia:
The inability to perform simple problems of arithmetic.
Attention/Concentration:
The ability to focus on a given task or set of stimuli for an appropriate period of time.
Brain Injury, Acquired:
The implication of this term is that the individual experienced normal growth and development from conception through birth, until sustaining an insult to the brain at some later time, which resulted in impairment of brain function.
Chronic:
Marked by long duration or frequent recurrence.
Circumlocution:
Use of other words to describe a specific word or idea, which cannot be remembered.
Concentration:
Maintaining attention on a task over a period of time; remaining attentive and not easily diverted.
Electroencephalogram(EEG):
A procedure that uses electrodes on the scalp to record electrical activity of the brain. Used for detection of epilepsy, coma, and brain death.
Evoked Potential:
Registration of the electrical responses of active brain cells as detected by electrodes placed on the surface of the head at various places. The evoked potential, unlike the waves on an EEG, is elicited by a specific stimulus applied to the visual, auditory or other sensory receptors of the body. Evoked potentials are used to diagnose a wide variety of central nervous system disorders.
Figure-Ground:
The differentiation between the foreground and the background of a scene; this refers to all sensory systems, including vision, hearing, touch.
Frontal Lobe:
Front part of the brain; involved in planning, organizing, problem solving, selective attention, personality and a variety of "higher cognitive functions."
Limbic System:
A group of brain structures, including the hippocampus, amygdala, dentate gyrus, cingulate gyrus, gyrus fornicatus, the archicortex, and their interconnections and connections with the hypothalamus, septal area, and a medial area of the mesencephalic tegmentum. The system is activated by motivated behavior and arousal, and it influences the endocrine and autonomic motor systems.
Memory, Episodic:
Memory for ongoing events in a person's life. More easily impaired than semantic memory, perhaps because rehearsal or repetition tends to be minimal.
Memory, Immediate:
The ability to recall numbers, pictures, or words immediately following presentation. Patients with immediate memory problems have difficulty learning new tasks because they cannot remember instructions. Relies upon concentration and attention.
Memory, Long Term:
In neuropsychological testing, this refers to recall thirty minutes or longer after presentation. Requires storage and retrieval of information which exceeds the limit of short term memory.
Memory, Short Term:
Primary or 'working' memory; its contents are in conscious awareness. A limited capacity system that holds up to seven chunks of information over periods of 30 seconds to several minutes, depending upon the person's attention to the task.
Orthographic dysgraphia
A writing disorder in which the person can spell regularly spelled words but not irregularly spelled ones.
Parasympathetic system:
This system regulates primitive, automatic bodily functions such as digestion and sleep, while the sympathetic nervous system controls the "fight or flight" instinct.
Perception:
The ability to make sense of what one sees, hears, feels, tastes or smells. Perceptual losses are often very subtle, and the patient and/or family may be unaware of them.
Perseveration:
The inappropriate persistence of a response in a current task which may have been appropriate for a former task. Perseverations may be verbal or motoric.
Pre-Morbid Condition:
Characteristics of an individual present before the disease or injury occurred.
Problem-Solving Skill:
Ability to consider the probable factors that can influence the outcome of each of various solutions to a problem, and to select the most advantageous solution. Individuals with deficits in this skill may become "immobilized" when faced with a problem. By being unable to think of possible solutions, they may respond by doing nothing.
Serotonin:
A chemical, 5-hydrozytryptamine (5-HT), present in blood platelets, the gastrointestinal tract, and certain regions of the brain. It plays an important role in blood clotting, stimulating a strong heart beat, initiating sleep, fighting depression (prescription drugs that treat depression raise the brain's levels of serotonin) and causing migraine headaches in susceptible individuals (because of its ability to constrict blood vessels or cause them to spasm). Serotonin is synthesized from the amino acid L-tryptophan. Serotonin (and, therefore, L-tyrptophan) also serves as a precursor for the pineal hormone melatonin, which regulates the body's clock.
Substance P:
An 11-amino acid peptide that is believed to be important as a neurotransmitter in the pain fiber system. This substance may also be important in eliciting local tissue reactions resembling inflammation.
Synapse:
The point of junction between two neurons in a neural pathway, where the termination of the axon of one neuron comes into close proximity with the cell body or dendrites of another. At this point, where the relationship of the two neurons is one of contact only, the impulse traveling in the first neuron initiates an impulse in the second neuron. Synapses are polarized, i.e., the impulses pass in one direction only. They are susceptible to fatigue, offer a resistance to the passage of impulses, and are markedly susceptible to the effects of oxygen deficiency, anesthetics, and other agents, including therapeutic drugs and toxic chemicals.
Temporal Lobes:
There are two temporal lobes, one on each side of the brain located at about the level of the ears. These lobes allow a person to tell one smell from another and one sound from another. They also help in sorting new information and are believed to be responsible for short-term memory.
Right Lobe - Mainly involved in visual memory (i.e., memory for pictures and faces).
Left Lobe - Mainly involved in verbal memory (i.e., memory for words and names).
Vestibular:
Pertaining to the vestibular system in the inner ear and the brain which senses movements of the head. Disorders of the vestibular system can lead to dizziness, poor regulation of postural muscle tone and inability to detect quick movements of the head.
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