PSY2061 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Fractional Anisotropy, Dementia, Brain Mapping
5 Jun 2018
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PSY2061 – Lecture – Week 7 – Brain Damage and Neuralplasticity
• causes of brain damage
•
o brain tumours
o stroke
o closed head injury
o infections
o neurotoxins
o genetics
• neuropsychological diseases
•
o epilepsy
o parkinson’s disease
o huntington’s disease
o multiple sclerosis
o alzheimer’s disease
• huntington’s disease
•
o HD is a neurogenerative disorder causing impairments in
involuntary and voluntary movement, cognitive and psychiatric
deficits
o clinical diagnosis is made on the presence on involuntary
movements known as chorea
o age at onset is 40 and decline occurs gradually leading to death
o neuronal loss in striatum (caudate and putamen) with brain
changes up to 10 years prior to clinical diagnosis
o can study gene positive individuals who have the defective gene
but do not yet display symptoms
o gene is an unstable CAG sequence
o capturing early brain changes
o
▪ the focus of hd research is to identify the earliest change
from normal function in pre-hd that could be potential
biomarkers
▪
▪ need to find biomarkers that show promise as being
sensitive indicators in detecting change early
o neuroimaging in HD
o
▪ has been central to characterisation of neurobiological
change in hd and other disorders
▪ neuroimaging methods provide a powerful set of
complementary techniques for investigation of dynamic
and long term aspects of brain structure, function and
connectivity
▪ major focus is to identify biomarkers of neuropathology
and progression that are sensitive for detecting change
o structural MRI biomarkers
o
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