In our body, the brain is the king organ. It is a fundamental structure that allows our survival and that regulates and coordinates processes as vital as breathing and heart rate, as fundamental as perception or movement or as complex as reasoning, learning, emotion and skills. executives. The health of this organ is essential for us.
However, there are multiple conditions that can affect and damage it, with serious consequences for survival and adaptation to the environment. In this article we are going to talk about some of these conditions, brain diseases.
There are a large number of factors that can alter the morphology and functioning of the human brain throughout the life cycle. Roughly, We can classify brain diseases into different categories depending on its cause.
1. Diseases and genetic alterations
Some brain disorders and diseases are caused by genetic factors that alter the functioning and morphology of this organ. Certain mutations in a gene They generate abnormal functioning of the body, in this case affecting the brain in certain ways. These types of brain diseases usually manifest themselves in early stages of development, either during fetal development or during the individual’s childhood, although in some cases the symptoms may appear in adulthood.
In this sense we can find disorders such as fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome or alterations in neuronal migration that can end up generating significant mental disorders.
Another genetic disorder is found in Huntington’s chorea, a genetic and neurodegenerative disease characterized by the presence of non-voluntary movements in the form of twists and turns and by personality changes and the progressive loss of executive functions.
2. Metabolic diseases
The existence of metabolic diseases can cause serious damage to the brain if they are not treated, by depriving the brain of elements necessary for its development.
An example of this type of brain diseases is found in phenylketonuria, which is a metabolic disorder which causes the absence of the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase, which in turn prevents tyrosine from phenylalanine from being metabolized, causing it to accumulate in a toxic way for the nervous system. Diabetes can also cause problems at the brain level, as the brain requires glucose for its proper functioning.
3. Diseases and strokes
The network of blood vessels that irrigates the brain and provides it with the oxygen and nutrients necessary for its survival is another element that can be altered by different diseases. Its malfunction can cause the death of more or less large brain areas depending on the type of vessels affected and their location. either due to anoxia or asphyxiation caused by spills.
Although they are not diseases themselves but rather the result of them, strokes are in fact one of the most common causes of death we are talking about a stroke or a cerebral hemorrhage.
Disorders such as angiopathies, the presence of aneurysms or even metabolic disorders such as diabetes can cause weakening or excessive stiffness of the vessels which can break or become clogged.
4. Brain diseases caused by an infection
The presence of infections in the brain can cause it to stop functioning properly because it becomes inflamed and compressed against the skull, stops receiving the substances it needs to survive, increase intracranial pressure or that is affected by harmful substances that alter its functioning or cause neuronal death.
One of the best-known disorders is encephalitis or inflammation of the brain, in which it becomes inflamed and symptoms such as fever, irritability, discomfort, tiredness, weakness, seizures, or even death. Another similar problem is meningitis or inflammation of the meninges that surround the brain.
Apart from that, some viruses, such as rabies, or the invasion of some parasites They can also cause severe illnesses. Other infections that can alter brain function are syphilis or HIV infection.
There are also diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob or prion disease, which arises from an infection caused by prions or proteins without nucleic acid and that cause dementia.
We can consider a tumor to be that uncontrolled and expansive growth of tissues in some part of the body, which can be benign or malignant and cause a wide variety of symptoms depending on the affected area. But even if we are not dealing with cancer, a brain tumor can pose a serious risk to survival, as it causes compression of the brain against the skull.
There are a large number of brain tumors depending on the type of cell from which the tumor arises and its degree of malignancy, such as astrocytomas, oligoastrocytomas, ependymomas or glioblastomas.
7. Neurodegenerative diseases
Many of the above diseases can be solved with proper treatment or cause an alteration that, although it may or may not limit the rest of the patient’s life and evolution, maintains specific effects that do not worsen. However, there are multiple diseases that cause progressive deterioration and neuronal death, with which the individual loses capabilities little by little until his death. These are neurodegenerative diseases.
Within this type of diseases, the best known are those that They are included within the group of dementias such as Alzheimer’s, or diseases that cause them such as Parkinson’s, or the aforementioned Huntington’s chorea and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Apart from these, other diseases such as multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis can also be observed, although these do not only affect the brain but also also the entire nervous system.
8. Trauma
Although head trauma is not a brain disease in itself, it can be caused extremely easily both by the consequences of the blow in question and by the counterblow of the opposite part of the brain as it rebounds against the skull.
Strokes can occur very easily, as well as infections and other types of damage. For example, nerve connections can be broken of the corpus callosum between the two cerebral hemispheres, or diffuse brain damage may occur. Hypersensitization of some groups of neurons can also occur and cause epilepsy.
9. Diseases caused by substance use
Other brain diseases can come from abusive consumption or abstinence from certain substances, which alter the normal functioning of the brain or destroy neurons in certain parts of the body. This is what happens, for example, with alcohol or certain drugs such as cocaine or heroin.
For example. We can observe disorders such as delirium tremens or Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (which first begins with an encephalopathy in which the subject has alterations in consciousness, hallucinations, tremors and then progresses to Korsakoff syndrome in which the patient presents retrograde and anterograde amnesia among other cognitive alterations).
Apart from the consumption and addiction to these substances, we can also find other types of disorders such as caused by food poisoning or poisoning by lead.
10. Malformations
The presence of congenital or acquired malformations of the brain or skull They can lead to severe alterations in brain functioning, especially when they occur during the growth stage by hindering the normative development of the brain.
Some examples that stand out within this type of brain diseases are hydrocephalus, anencephaly, microcephaly or Crouzon’s disease.
11. Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a brain disease that occurs due to an unbalanced functioning of neuronal groups, which are hypersensitized and react abnormally to stimulation.
This causes the subject to manifest alterations such as seizures, sudden loss of consciousness, malaise memory difficulties, anomia or alterations in executive functions.
This disorder can be caused by a large number of disorders and accidents, such as trauma, encephalitis, stroke, tumors or malformations. However, in some cases it is not possible to determine the cause of the crises.
12. Disconnection syndrome
Another very dangerous brain disorder is disconnection syndrome, in which one part of the brain loses connection with another or others so that nervous information cannot be integrated efficiently. One of the best known is callosal disconnection syndrome, in which for some reason the corpus callosum suffers some type of section or leak that prevents information from one hemisphere from coordinating and traveling to the other.
