Phineas P. Gage's 1848 case is pivotal in demonstrating how brain damage can significantly alter personality, specifically affecting the frontal cortex and resulting in disinhibited behavior. Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and neurological disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease are discussed, highlighting the causes, symptoms, and impacts of these conditions on individuals. Treatment options, particularly for dementia, include drugs that increase acetylcholine availability, though their effectiveness varies among patients.

1. (July , 1823 – May 21, 1860)
Phineas P. Gage
The Boston Post for September 21, 1848
1st case widely cited in medicine to infer that brain function can alter personality
daguerreotype
Brain Damage

2. ~1850
Pattern of injury is very localized
-blood vessels spared
- only frontal cortex damaged
- loss of 1 eye
Consciousness regained in days
- personality/behavior dramatically altered
- child-like, profane, disinhibited, inappropriate, inability to control anger and
emotions.
Referred to today as classic “hypofrontality”
-common with traumatic injury to the frontal lobes
“Social Recovery” Until 2008, commonly thought that he demonstrated these
symptoms until his death, 12 years later. But this was not true…

3. Brain Damage
1. Traumatic brain injury
2. Strokes
3. Alzheimer’s Disease
4. Parkinson’s Disease
Other neurological disorders discussed in the book will
NOT be subject to test questions

4. Traumatic Brain Injury
FACTS:
1.4 million who sustain a TBI each year in the United States (0.5% of people in U.S.)
50,000 die;
235,000 are hospitalized; and
1.1 million are treated and released from an emergency department.
What causes TBI?
Falls (28%)
Motor vehicle-traffic crashes (20%)
Struck by/against (19%)
Assaults (11%)
Who is at highest risk for TBI?
Males are about 1.5 times as likely as females to sustain a TBI.1
The two age groups at highest risk for TBI are 0 to 4 year olds and 15 to 19 year olds
Certain military duties (e.g., paratrooper) increase the risk of sustaining a TBI
Langlois JA (2006)

5. Types of Traumatic Brain Injury
“Closed Head Injury”
Concussion. Concussions are the most common type of TBI. A concussion is
damage to nerves or blood vessels in the brain often caused by an impact to the head.
Contusions. A contusion is a bruise or bleeding on the brain that can be caused
by an impact.
Diffuse Axonal Injury. This is tearing of nerve tissue or blood vessels when the
brain is jostled in the skull. It can result from shaking (for instance, shaken baby syndrome)
or whiplash
Coup-countrecoup Injury. impact not only injures the site of impact, but causes
the brain to impact with the skull, causing injury to the opposite side of the brain.
Symptoms:
acute: confusion, visual disturbance, unconsciousness if severe
long-term: memory problems, sensory problems .
- “dementia pugalistica”

6. How does traumatic brain injury develop ?
-direct, mechanical injury to neurons (axons, dendrites or soma)
- damage to blood supply deprives neurons and glia of nutrients
-Overactivity of glutamate receptors
A little bit of Ca2+ inflow is good at the right time, too much is toxic
-Activation of NMDA-type glutamate receptors
-Inflow of too much Ca2+ into neurons
- activates death enzymes that break down
neuron
-Impairs neuron ability to meet energy
requirements
-Triggers cell death

7. Strokes
disruption of blood flow in brain
3rd leading cause of death in adults
1. Hemorrhage: bleeding in brain, blood vessel ruptures
- can be from traumatic injury to blood vessel
- can be from “aneurysm”
weakening of blood vessel wall, balloonlike
dialation forms and can burst
caused by some infections, toxins like cigarette
Smoke. Can also be develomental abnormality.

8. 2. Ischemia: blood flow to a brain region is blocked
- a blockage that comes from another part
of the body is an “embolism” (vs. thrombosis)
for example, a blood clot in leg, can travel to brain
and cause ischemia is gets stuck in a smaller artery.
“arteriosclerosis”: fat deposits in brain blood vessels grow
over time and block blood flow. (can become embolism)
How does a loss of blood supply kill neurons ?
-deprived neurons become overexcited, release glutamate
-glutamate activates NMDA receptors
- and because no blood supply=no energy, no reuptake of glutamate

9. Dementias deterioration of intellectual abilities due to disease
*memory, judgment, concentration
*usually w/ personality changes, emotional
instability
What causes dementia ??
12-15% stroke
12-15% Huntingtons, Parkinson’s Diseases (motor diseases)
* other similar disease that are rare
>5% Korsakoff’s syndrome
severe anterograde amnesia
Alzheimer’s Disease (leading cause of severe dementia in U.S.)
- +1% of population, most over 65 yrs old

10. The severity and type of symptoms observed is directly related to death of
neurons in several brain regions.

11. Causes ?
We do NOT know what causes Alzheimer’s Disease !
But, we know that…:
1. Risk of developing it is heritable
there is a “genetic” factor involved
2. Some AD patients have a specific genetic problem
That can cause early-onset and severe form (~45 yrs old)
Alzheimer’s Disease is probably just 1 term used to describe
the symptoms of lots of different diseases that cause
brain damage and similar symptoms.
3. But, many other AD patients don’t have family members
with AD and don’t have an identified genetic problem

12. I. Plaques: most AD patients have plaques in
parts of the brain that show cell loss
in early AD: medial temporal lobe areas
(hippocampus) and cortex
in late AD: lots of areas
(all areas that produce or receive acetylcholine)
1. Plaques are made of a protein called beta-amyloid
2. Beta amyloid come from a normal protein that neurons need to function normally,
called Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP)
3. but, APP is cut by enzymes into abnormal amounts of beta amyloid.
-neurons can get rid of a small amount of beta amyloid, but
if there is too much, beta amyloid clumps together to form plaques inside of neurons.
Neurons don’t function normally and die-off
Key to understanding plaques:

13. II. Tangles: Many AD patients also have “tangles” in
neurons
Microtubules are long string-like structures that transport
things from the cell body to the end of the axon and dendrites
In AD, these microtubules break apart and
collapse into a tangles mess and neurons don’t function normally,
so they die-off.
Tau proteins (like rungs of a ladder)

14. Normal Human
Human with Alzheimer’s Disease
Gross Pathology:
Ventricles larger
gray matter loss
white matter loss

15. Drug Treatment of Dementias
Drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Cognex®
Aricept®
Reminyl®
Exelon®
Namenda®
All are inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase, except Namenda
1. Acetylcholine is release from “presynaptic” neuron, and then re-absorbed
lots of it in hippocampus and cortex
2. Acetylcholinesterase is an enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine
3. That means that more acetylcholine is present in synaptic cleft to stimulate
receptors on neurons in learning/memory areas
YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW THESE

16. Key facts about acetylcholinesterase inhibitors:
some improvement in daily living skills
some delay in progression of disease
BUT, typically a small effect and occurs in a small % of patients
Can be very toxic to the liver
Namenda® FDA approved to treat late-stage Alzheimer’s
the newest approved drug (2004)
Namenda® - blocks the NMDA receptor for a very short period of time
-Based on theory that over activity of NMDA receptors contribute
to neuron death in Alzheimer’s disease
Does it work ?: small effects in a small # of patients
But, these small effects have a dramatic effect on quality of life

17. Parkinson’s Disease
"An Essay on the Shaking Palsy," published in
1817 by a London physician named James
Parkinson,
mentioned in the Ayurveda, the system of
medicine practiced in India as early 7,000 years
ago , and in the first Chinese medical text, Nei
Jing, which appeared 2500 years ago

18. Symptoms
 Difficulty initiating movement
 Shuffling gait
 “Cogwheel” rigidity
 Tremor at rest
 Advanced stages may include psychiatric complications
 depression
 hallucinations
 Paranoia
 Cognitive decline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13ftfmYwfaw

19. Incidence
 Onset usually appears after age of 40 years
 but can begin at any time including childhood when
it is termed juvenile parkinsonism
 affects 1% aged 50 years and over
 10% aged 60 years and over may have undiagnosed,
early stages of the disease
 about 1½ times more common in men than in
women

20. Subtypes
 Primary (idiopathic- most common)
 unknown origin but not induced by obvious stimulus
 Secondary (parkinsonism)
 related to drugs, stroke, or trauma, other stimuli
 Familial
 genetically linked
 accounts for < 20% of the diagnosed cases

21. Progression: identified too late ?
 Considerable dopamine loss must occur before the
disease is apparent
 clinical diagnosis is usually made after  80% loss in
basal ganglia dopamine content
 symptoms may emerge after a 60% reduction in basal
ganglia dopamine content
 The disease is probably present > 20 years before
diagnosis

22. Meso-Striatal Dopamine system
COMPONENTS OF THIS SYSTEM
1. Substantia Nigra- in midbrain
- send fibers to Basal Ganglia
- releases dopamine = movement
2. Basal Ganglia (part of striatum)-
-sends fibers to motor cortex
-receives fibers from sensory
cortex and substantia Nigra
In Parkinson’s Disease
Substantia Nigra neurons die
= reduced excitatory input
into basal ganglia
The two parts of the basal
ganglia (Caudate and
Putamen) also die

23. Postmortem Analysis
brain photographs courtesy of the
University of Utah Medical School
Roberta J. Seidman, M.D., SUNY
Shrunken Substantia Nigra

24. Loss of cellular activity in the Basal Ganglia
PET Scan

25. Pathology in Parkinson’s Disease
Lewy body pathology: these bodies are circular structures
found in cytoplasm.
-Dense core of protein called α-synuclein
- normally aids in synaptic vesicle function
Abnormality in gene that makes this protein is a
significant risk for Parkinson’s disease
Many environmental toxins lead to clumping of
α-synuclein too (pesticides, drugs of abuse ?)

26. Parkin abnormalities ? (familial PD)
gene mutation that is a risk factor for Parkinson’s Disease
Parkin: a protein found in neurons that transport abnormal proteins
to a “proteosome” and tag these proteins with a “death flag”
called “ubiquitin”.
“Ubiquitination” of a protein signals the proteosome to degrade the
protein into its amino acid subparts.
Overactivity of Parkin in brain regions controlling motor function can
cause over-activation of the proteosome
neuronal death

27. Treatment
 Levodopa (L-dopa) therapy (L-dopa is a dopamine precursor)
 generally very effective for the first 2 to 5 years of
treatment after which the on-off effect develops
 Direct-acting dopamine receptor agonists
 Experimental brain surgery
 lesions of nuclei that inhibit basal ganglia
 - remove inhibition of dying neurons, they may be more active = motor
control
 neural tissue implants (e.g., fetal dopamine cells)

28. Recently, Deep Brain stimulation - indwelling electrodes
implanted in some of the dying neurons. Patients can stimulate
electrodes , provides a brief pulse to these neurons, which
rapidly restores some control of motor activity.
PET images courtesy of the UCLA School
of Medicine, Division of Brain Mapping
Substantia nigra cells were surgically implanted into the right putamen. Note
the continued degeneration seen on the contralateral (left) side revealed by the
PET.