The human brain is the most perfect mechanism in the world, which is made up of billions of nerve cells. Not all brain cells function. Only 5-10% are working, and the rest are in a state of waiting. They can be activated when the bulk of the neurons are damaged and die. But there are pathological processes in which not only functioning cells die, but also spare ones. In this case, the mass of the brain decreases, and the main functions are lost. This medical condition is called brain atrophy.
Atrophy
Atrophy of the brain in adults is not an independent disease, but a pathological process, which consists in the gradual death of nerve cells, smoothing of the convolutions, thickening of the cerebral cortex, reduction in the size and mass of the brain. This process has a negative impact onall functions of the human body, but primarily affects the intellectual development.
Normally, the brain undergoes changes with age, but they are not manifested by severe symptoms and are expressed to a minimum. With age (at 50-55 years old), the process of aging of the brain begins. Already by the age of 70-80, the mass of the organ decreases. It is with this process that typical changes in the character of old people are associated. Many of them become grouchy and irritable, impatience and tearfulness appear, intelligence decreases. But physiological age-related atrophy does not lead to severe mental and neurological symptoms.
It is important that if pathological signs are present in the elderly or young patients, in children, then you need to look for the disease that caused the atrophy of the medulla.
Causes of death of brain cells
There are a huge number of diseases of varying severity and pathological processes that lead to damage to neurons and their death later. The main causes of brain cell death are as follows:
- unfavorable heredity;
- severe traumatic brain injury;
- chronic intoxication of the body;
- chronic cerebral ischemia;
- genetic predisposition;
- neurodegenerative diseases;
- increased intracranial pressure.
All these reasons are discussed in more detail below, but already from a short list it becomes clear that atrophy is notdisease, but a consequence of some pathology. A sad outcome in most cases can be avoided if the diagnosis is made on time and appropriate treatment is prescribed.
Heredity and brain atrophy
Bad genetics is a common cause of brain atrophy in newborns. Genetic mutations do not always cause spontaneous abortion in early pregnancy. In some cases, the fetus is preserved, but the child is born with serious illnesses, which eventually lead to the complete degradation of the newborn. Adversely affect the fetus of various kinds of diseases with complications on the brain, mother's alcohol consumption and smoking during pregnancy, infectious diseases. Often the cause of congenital atrophy is infection of the mother with toxoplasmosis in the early stages of gestation or Pick's disease.
Pick's disease is a rare disease. This is a severe dementia with atrophy predominantly of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. Researchers associate the development of pathology with heredity. Specific therapy has not been developed. All methods used are aimed at slowing the progression of symptoms, but the effectiveness of treatment is low. The state of deep dementia occurs five to six years after the first signs of the disease. Life expectancy from the onset of the disease does not exceed ten years.
The risk of developing genetic mutations and the transmission of hereditary diseases to the child increases significantly if the parents are over 35 years old. It is desirable for both father and mother when planning pregnancy in suchage, first consult a geneticist (even if the spouses are he althy), start taking the appropriate vitamins in a timely manner and not refuse screenings that will help identify pathologies in the early stages.
Chronic intoxications
Atrophy of the frontal lobes of the brain or another type of disease can be caused by chronic intoxication of the body. The most striking example is alcoholic encephalopathy. The disease develops with the systematic use of alcoholic beverages against the background of beriberi. Added to this is the lack of oxygen, vital minerals, the effects of toxins on brain cells. The treatment of acute alcoholic encephalopathy is complex, and the consequences of the disease are very severe. Chronic encephalopathy can develop rather slowly, progressing over many years. An atrophied brain is not the only consequence of chronic intoxication. In patients, the work of the heart is disrupted, difficulties appear when walking, paralysis, hemorrhages in the brain tissue, visual impairment, fecal and urinary incontinence, coma.
Tranio-cerebral injuries
The consequence of a brain injury can be atrophy. In such cases, as a rule, the process is localized. In place of this part of the brain, neurons die off, scars, cystic cavities or glial foci are formed. The process may be accompanied by the appearance of neurological symptoms and mental disorders. It is known that numerous severe head injuries are a provoking factor in the developmentParkinson's, Alzheimer's or Pick's.
Chronic cerebral ischemia
Cerebral ischemia is caused by impaired blood supply to the organ with gradually increasing various defects in its functioning. The causes of the development of the disease are closely related to atherosclerotic thrombosis, stenosis or embolism. A certain role is played by the deformation of the arteries with a violation of their patency, hemorheological changes in the blood, post-traumatic dissection of the arteries of the spine. Signs of impaired blood flow are also violated in diseases such as hypotension, hypertension, cardiac disorders, pathologies of the kidneys, blood, and so on.
At the stage of initial manifestations of ischemia, the patient often complains of headaches and constant fatigue, emotional instability, sleep disturbances, decreased attention and concentration, dizziness. The phenomena are accompanied by mild neurological pantomimes, for example, discoordinated phenomena, oculomotor insufficiency, memory loss. At the second stage, persistent memory impairment, instability when walking, insufficiency of the facial and hypoglossal nerves begin. In the third stage, falls and fainting are observed. Treatment at this stage is supportive and the damage to the brain is already irreversible.
Inflammatory diseases
The consequences of meningitis (inflammation of the membranes of the brain) include epilepsy, accumulation of fluid in the brain, hormone dysfunction, mental disorders, permanent disturbance of the central nervous system and paralysis. How to recognize the symptoms of meningitis in adults? Symptomsusually sharp. There is a very severe headache, stool disturbance, nausea, general weakness, the legs involuntarily bend at the knee and hip joints when the head is tilted to the chest in the supine position. Treatment should be carried out only in a hospital and under the supervision of specialists. Lack of therapy or attempts at self-treatment may lead to a worsening of the patient's condition.
How to recognize the symptoms of meningitis in adults? The first signs will allow you to determine the pathology in the early stages and start adequate treatment on time. Usually there is a sharp drop in body temperature, headache, numbness of the neck and difficulty in turning or tilting the head, lack of appetite, frequent vomiting without relief. Sometimes a pink or red rash appears, which disappears with pressure. How to recognize the symptoms of meningitis in children? The main symptoms are the same fever, headache, apathy and lack of appetite. Lymph nodes become inflamed, hypersensitivity to light, diarrhea, pressure in the eye area appear.
How to recognize meningitis in children? Symptoms of a dangerous illness can be confused with a common cold or flu. In children under one year old, meningitis can be caused by Haemophilus influenzae, the disease can appear after suffering pneumonia or sinusitis. In young patients, the pathology in most cases begins with a fever. Therefore, it is imperative to show the baby to the doctor at the first alarming symptoms. The risk group is children under five.
Neurodegenerativeviolations
Neurodegenerative disorders account for about 70% of dementia. The exact causes of diseases belonging to this group are still unknown. Alzheimer's disease is a common form of senile dementia, although there are cases where the pathology develops before the age of 50 years. The causes of the disease are unknown, and there is no specific treatment. Only symptomatic therapy is carried out, which can mitigate the manifestations of the disease. But it cannot stop the progression of an incurable pathology. The same can be said about Pick's disease, which is more malignant.
A characteristic feature of Lewy's disease (dementia with Lewy bodies) are mental disorders, for example, the appearance of hallucinations, significant changes in intelligence during the day. Memory suffers the least, with such a pathology, visual and spatial perception is first disturbed, attention suffers. Most often, such signs appear by the end of the first year of the course of the disease. The only treatment is levodopa. The consequences of the disease are very severe. Persistent symptoms appear after a year of illness, and the total life expectancy does not exceed 7-10 years.
Increased intracranial pressure
As a rule, increased intracranial pressure is associated with impaired outflow of cerebrospinal fluid from the cranium. With an increase in pressure, frequent headaches, distraction, dizziness, visual disturbances, drowsiness, memory impairment, hypotension or hypertension, nausea, sweating,chills, pain in the spine and increased sensitivity of the skin. Diagnosis is by CT, MRI, or ultrasound. If an accurate diagnosis is established, you first need to treat the disease that caused the increase in intracranial pressure. It can be osteochondrosis, atherosclerosis, hormonal imbalance, hypertension. Symptomatic therapy is also important.
Types of brain atrophy
Brain damage can be different (depending on the type of pathological changes and the prevalence of the process). With cortical atrophy, cortical neurons die. This is a common type of disease that accompanies common pathologies with a negative effect on the brain, for example, chronic intoxication, atherosclerosis, hypertension, and so on. This type of atrophy is at the heart of the brain changes that occur with age. As a rule, only the frontal lobes are affected in this case.
Multifocal atrophy affects not only the cortex, but also the cerebellum, trunk, basal ganglia, white matter, pyramidal or extrapyramidal system. The symptoms of the disease are very severe. Patients develop extreme dementia, signs of Parkinson's disease, autonomic symptoms, impaired coordination of movements.
Local atrophy is concentrated in individual tissue foci. This may be the result of trauma, brain damage in newborns, stroke, neurological pathologies, parasitic invasions. Symptoms include focal neurological signs thatdiffer in different patients depending on the localization of pathological areas and their size. Often such lesions are the cause of epilepsy.
Diffuse atrophy is evenly distributed throughout the brain. Such a process is observed in neurodegenerative processes of varying severity, intoxications and dyscirculatory encephalopathy. In certain diseases, only some parts of the brain can atrophy, for example, the occipital lobe, cerebellum or basal ganglia.
Degrees of atrophy in adults
Degrees of brain atrophy change sequentially. At the initial stage, there are no clinical signs, but the development of the disorder and the transition to the next stage quickly occur. In the second stage, the patient's communication with others rapidly deteriorates. A person becomes conflicted, cannot maintain a conversation for a long time and adequately perceive criticism. The third stage is the point at which the patient begins to gradually lose control of his behavior. Aggression, anger or apathy may appear for no reason. Behavior becomes questionable.
At the fourth stage of cortical atrophy of the brain and other types of pathology, a person ceases to perceive the demands of others and does not realize the essence of events. The final stage is a complete lack of understanding of the events taking place, everything that happens does not cause any emotions. If the frontal lobe suffers, then already at the first stage of the disease, indifference or euphoria, various types of mania, lethargy, sexual hyperactivity, and speech disorders may appear. On the laststages of the disease can be dangerous to society.
Signs of dying nerve cells
An atrophied brain gives alarming symptoms almost immediately, although much depends on the type of disease. With atrophy of the cortex, the motor skills of the fingers deteriorate, memory deteriorates to the point of inability to remember anything, the features of speech, tempo and tone change, and the ability to analyze and think decreases. The remaining symptoms depend on the characteristics of the course of the disease. So, with damage to the cerebellum, the tone and coordination of movements are disturbed. A sign of atrophy of the diencephalon is the loss of the ability to thermoregulate and failures in metabolic processes. With atrophy of the medulla oblongata, breathing, digestion, protective reflexes, and heart activity are disturbed. With the death of the midbrain, the reaction to external stimuli disappears.
Frontal lobe syndrome most often amenable to atrophy. The clinical symptoms in this case largely depend on the pathology that caused the atrophy, but there is also a common one. The patient cannot control himself at all, or self-control decreases, the person becomes irritable, loses his ability in creative activity, stops caring about others, becomes an egoist. Usually patients are prone to rudeness and emotional breakdowns, impulsive. Decreased intelligence and memory, an atrophied brain makes the patient prone to primitive humor and hypersexuality.
Psychoorganic syndrome occurs in varying degrees of severity. In cerebral atrophy, it includes impaired intelligence and memory, affective disorders, and cerebroasthenic manifestations. The patient loses the ability to self-criticism and an adequate assessment of what is happening, cannot acquire new knowledge and skills, loses the previously accumulated amount of knowledge. Thinking becomes one-sided and primitive. The vocabulary decreases, when talking, the patient quickly switches to other topics and cannot remember the main idea of the conversation. Memory suffers in all directions. The patient often has a depressed mood, he is irritable, whiny and touchy, which is suddenly replaced by euphoria and optimism.
Dementia is acquired dementia, which is accompanied by a decrease in the ability to all types of cognitive activity, the loss of all previously acquired knowledge and skills, the inability to acquire new ones. Many diseases can be accompanied by dementia, including those that cause brain atrophy.
Atrophied brain in children
Children also have this pathology. What is the danger of oxygen starvation of the brain? This is one of the many reasons that cause brain atrophy in newborns. The reasons may be different: hereditary factors, various pregnancy complications, infections (especially toxoplasmosis), birth injuries, infections in the first days of a baby’s life, the negative impact of alcohol, drugs, various medications that the expectant mother took during pregnancy (especially in the first trimester).
The brain of a child at birth has plasticity, with almost any damage, it is quite effectively restored without consequences. The only important conditiontimely diagnosis and treatment of the primary disease. Otherwise, the consequences of brain atrophy in children can be very severe (oligophrenia, cerebral palsy, and so on).
Principles of treatment
With an atrophied brain, it is important for a person to provide comfortable living conditions and attention from relatives. To relieve symptoms, only symptomatic therapy is prescribed. When diagnosing the first signs of a dangerous condition, it is necessary to provide the patient with a comfortable environment. You can not change the usual way of life. It is desirable that the patient perform all the same household chores, be provided with support and care from loved ones. It is not recommended to place a person in a medical facility. This will only worsen the patient's condition and accelerate the progression of the disease. With cerebral atrophy and other types of illness, the use of sedatives, antidepressants and mild tranquilizers is prescribed. Such therapy will help a person to maintain a calm mood. The patient also needs to create conditions for active movement, he must continue to do his usual daily activities. It is desirable that a person with this disorder sleep during the day.
Consequences and forecast
The pathological process has an unfavorable prognosis. Usually, severe diseases lead to atrophy already in the last or penultimate stages. Symptoms of atrophy of the cerebral cortex (how long patients live, it is clear already by the severity of the manifestations of the pathology) are quite complex. In Alzheimer's disease, similar in manifestations,patients are expected to live less than their peers. After diagnosis, life expectancy averages about seven years, but in most cases death occurs not from the disease itself, but from its manifestations: falls due to discoordination, accidents and injuries due to negligence, road accidents. Parkinson's disease is also incurable. In the absence of medical care, patients live for about ten years. Almost 90% of patients live for more than fifteen years without the need for outside help, and then they already need constant care. With brain atrophy in newborns, rehabilitation will be very difficult. Even so, it is likely that the child will be mentally and physically retarded.
Prevention of brain atrophy
An atrophied brain is not a disease in itself, but a symptom of other abnormalities. There is no specific prevention. All activities are aimed at maintaining a he althy lifestyle, organizing proper nutrition, preventing atherosclerosis, and showing physical activity.
