The human brain is the most advanced mechanism in the world, which consists of billions of nerve cells. Not all brain cells function. Only 5-10% work, and the rest are in a waiting state. They can be activated when the bulk of the neurons is damaged and dies. 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. Doctors call this condition 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 convolutions, densification of the cerebral cortex, a decrease in the size and weight of the brain. This process negatively affects all the functions of the human body, but primarily affects intellectual development.
Normally, the brain undergoes changes with age, but they do not manifest severe symptoms and are expressed to a minimum. With age (50-55 years), the process of aging of the brain begins. By the age of 70-80, the mass of the organ is reduced. It is with this process that typical changes in the character of the elderly are associated. Many of them become grouchy and irritable, impatience and tearfulness appear, and 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 brain substance.
Causes of brain cell death
There are a huge number of diseases of varying severity and pathological processes that lead to damage to neurons and their death subsequently. The main causes of brain cell death are as follows:
- adverse heredity;
- severe head injuries;
- 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 from a short list it becomes clear that atrophy is not a disease, but a consequence of some kind of pathology. In most cases, a sad outcome can be avoided if a diagnosis is made on time and appropriate treatment is prescribed.
Heredity and brain atrophy
Poor genetics is a common cause of brain atrophy in newborns. Genetic mutations do not always cause spontaneous abortions in early pregnancy. In some cases, the fetus persists, but the baby is born with serious illnesses that eventually lead to complete degradation of the newborn. Adverse effects on the fetus of various kinds of diseases with complications on the brain, maternal alcohol consumption and smoking during pregnancy, infectious ailments. Often the cause of congenital atrophy is infection of the mother with toxoplasmosis in the early stages of gestation or Peak's disease.
Peak's disease is a rare disease. This is severe dementia with atrophy of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. Researchers connect the development of pathology with heredity. Specific therapy is not developed. All methods used are aimed at slowing the progression of symptoms, but the effectiveness of treatment is low. A 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 a child increases significantly if parents are older than 35 years. When planning a pregnancy at this age, it is advisable for both father and mother to first consult with a geneticist (even if the spouses are healthy), timely start taking appropriate vitamins and not refuse screenings that will help determine pathologies in the early stages.
Chronic intoxication
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 alcohol encephalopathy. The disease develops with the systematic use of alcoholic beverages against the background of vitamin deficiency. To this is added a 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 quite slowly, progressing over many years. An atrophied brain is not the only consequence of chronic intoxication. Patients have impaired heart function, difficulty walking, paralysis, hemorrhage in the brain tissue, visual impairment, fecal and urinary incontinence, and coma.
Head injuries
Atrophy can be a consequence of a brain injury . In such cases, as a rule, the process is localized. At the site of this part of the brain, neurons die, scars, cystic cavities or glial foci form. 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 for the development of Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease or Peak.
Chronic cerebral ischemia
Cerebral ischemia is caused by a violation of the blood supply to the organ with gradually increasing various defects in its functioning. The causes of the development of the disease are closely associated with atherosclerotic thrombosis, stenosis or embolism. A certain role is played by deformation of arteries with impaired patency, hemorheological changes in blood, post-traumatic stratification of the arteries of the spine. Signs of a blood flow disorder are also violated in diseases such as hypotension, hypertension, cardiac abnormalities, 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, and dizziness. Phenomena are accompanied by mild neurological pantomimes, for example, discoordinated phenomena, oculomotor insufficiency, memory loss. In the second stage, persistent memory impairments, instability when walking, insufficiency of the facial and sublingual nerves begin. In the third stage, falls and fainting are observed. Treatment at this stage is supportive in nature, brain damage is already irreversible.
Inflammatory diseases
The effects of meningitis (inflammation of the membranes of the brain) include epilepsy, accumulation of fluid in the brain, hormone dysfunctions, mental disorders, persistent disruption of the central nervous system and paralysis. How to recognize the symptoms of meningitis in adults? Symptoms are usually acute. There is a very severe headache, impaired stool, nausea, general weakness, and legs are involuntarily bent at the knee and hip joints when the head is tilted to the chest while lying down. Treatment should be carried out only in a hospital and under the supervision of specialists. Lack of therapy or attempted self-medication can 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 in time to begin adequate treatment. Usually there is a sharp drop in body temperature, headache, numbness of the neck and difficulty turning or tilting the head, lack of appetite, frequent vomiting without relief. Sometimes a rash of a pink or red color 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, there is an increased sensitivity to light, diarrhea, pressure in the eye area.
How to recognize meningitis in children? Symptoms of a dangerous illness can be confused with a common cold or flu. In children up to a year of age, hemophilus influenzae can cause meningitis, the disease may appear after pneumonia or sinusitis. In young patients, the pathology in most cases begins with fever. Therefore, it is necessary to show the baby to the doctor at the first alarming symptoms. The risk group consists of children under five years of age.
Neurodegenerative disorders
Neurodegenerative disorders account for about 70% of senile dementia. The exact causes of the diseases belonging to this group are still unknown. Alzheimer's disease is a common form of senile dementia, although there are cases when the pathology develops at the age of less than 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 Peak's disease, which is more malignant.
A characteristic feature of Levy disease (dementia with Levi 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, the 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 drugs. The consequences of the disease are very serious. 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 increased pressure, frequent headaches, distraction, dizziness, visual impairment, drowsiness, memory impairment, hypotension or hypertension, nausea, sweating, chills, pain in the spine and increased sensitivity of the skin are observed. Diagnosis is by CT, MRI or ultrasound. If an accurate diagnosis is established, first you need to deal with the treatment of a disease that caused an increase in intracranial pressure. This may be osteochondrosis, atherosclerosis, hormonal imbalance, hypertension. Symptomatic therapy is also important.
Types of Brain Atrophy
Damage to the brain can be different (depending on the type of pathological changes and the prevalence of the process). With cortical atrophy, neurons of the cortex 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 brain changes that occur with age. As a rule, in this case only the frontal lobes are affected.
Multifocal atrophy affects not only the cortex, but also the cerebellum, trunk, basal ganglia, white matter, the pyramidal or extrapyramidal system. 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 foci of tissue. This may be the result of trauma, brain damage in newborns, stroke, neurological pathologies, parasitic infestations. Symptoms include focal neurological signs that differ in different patients depending on the location of the pathological sites and their size. Often such foci are the cause of epilepsy.
Diffuse atrophy is evenly distributed throughout the brain. Such a process is observed with neurodegenerative processes of varying severity, with intoxications and dyscirculatory encephalopathy. In certain diseases of atrophy, only certain parts of the brain can give in, for example, the occipital lobe, cerebellum or basal ganglia.
Degrees of atrophy in adults
Degrees of brain atrophy are replaced sequentially. At the initial stage, there are no clinical signs, but the development of the disorder quickly and the transition to the next stage. At the second stage, the patient's communication with others quickly worsens. A person becomes conflicted, cannot maintain a conversation for a long time and adequately perceive criticism. The third stage is the moment when the patient begins to gradually lose control of his behavior. There may be aggression, anger, or apathy for no reason. Behavior becomes doubtful.
At the fourth stage of cortical atrophy of the brain and other types of pathology, a person ceases to perceive the requirements of others and does not realize the essence of the events. The final stage is a complete lack of understanding of current events, everything that happens does not cause any emotions. If the frontal lobe suffers, then at the first stage of the disease indifference or euphoria, different types of mania, lethargy, sexual hyperactivity, and speech disorders may appear. In the last stages, the patient can be dangerous to society.
Signs of nerve cell death
An atrophied brain produces alarming symptoms almost immediately, although much depends on the type of disease. With cortical atrophy, the motor skills of the fingers deteriorate, memory deteriorates to the inability to remember anything, the characteristics 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 a loss of ability to thermoregulate and interruptions 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 is most often amenable to atrophy. Clinical symptoms in this case largely depend on the pathology that caused atrophy, but there is a general one. The patient cannot independently control himself at all, or self-control decreases, the person becomes irritable, loses his ability in creative activity, ceases to care about others, becomes an egoist. Usually patients are prone to rudeness and emotional breakdowns, impulsive. Intelligence and memory are reduced, an atrophied brain makes the patient prone to primitive humor and hypersexuality.
In varying degrees of severity, a psycho-organic syndrome occurs. In cerebral atrophy, it includes impaired intelligence and memory, affective disorders and cerebroasthenic manifestations. The patient loses the ability to self-criticize and adequately assess what is happening, cannot acquire new knowledge and skills, loses the previously accumulated amount of knowledge. Thinking becomes one-sided and primitive. The vocabulary is reduced, during a conversation the patient quickly switches to other topics and cannot remember the main idea of the conversation. In all directions memory suffers. The patient often has a depressed mood, he is irritable, tearful 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 get new ones. Many diseases can be accompanied by dementia, including those that cause brain atrophy.
Atrophied brain in children
Children also have such a pathology. What is the danger of oxygen starvation of the brain? This is one of the many causes that cause brain atrophy in newborns. : , , ( ), , , , , , (, ).
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Treatment principles
With an atrophied brain, it is important for a person to provide comfortable living conditions and attention from relatives. To alleviate the 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 advisable that the patient carry out all the same household chores, be provided with support and care from relatives. It is not recommended to place a person in a medical facility. This will only worsen the condition of the patient and accelerate the progression of the disease. With cerebral atrophy and other types of the disease, the use of sedatives, antidepressants and lung tranquilizers is prescribed. Such therapy will help a person maintain a calm mood. The patient also needs to create conditions for active movement, he must continue to engage in everyday activities on a daily basis. It is advisable that a person with such a disorder sleep during the day.
Consequences and forecast
The pathological process has an unfavorable prognosis. Severe diseases usually lead to atrophy already in the last or penultimate stages. Symptoms of atrophy of the cerebral cortex (how many patients live, understandable by the severity of the manifestations of the pathology) are quite complex. With Alzheimer's disease, similar in manifestations, patients are expected to live less than their peers. After diagnosis, life expectancy is on average about seven years, but in most cases death does not occur from the disease itself, but from its manifestations: falls due to discoordination, accidents and injuries through negligence, accident. 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 need constant care. With brain atrophy in newborns, rehabilitation will be very difficult. Even in this case, it is likely that the child will lag behind in mental and physical development.
Brain Atrophy Prevention
An atrophied brain is not a disease in itself, but a symptom of other abnormalities. There is no specific prophylaxis. All activities are aimed at maintaining a healthy lifestyle, the organization of proper nutrition, the prevention of atherosclerosis, the manifestation of physical activity.