Depression, Agnosia & Aphasia: Causes, Types and Symptoms
Depression
Depression is a very serious emotional illness in which the individual feels sad and empty, and often sits alone constantly or loses hope. Depressed people usually suffer from anxiety and irritability, a lack of motivation, and loss of interest in things they once enjoyed. They also experience changes in appetite and sleep. Severely depressed people may have suicidal thoughts and, in the worst cases, a sense that life is not worth living. The disorder affects the part of the brain related to memory, the hippocampus.
Agnosia
Agnosia is the inability to recognize stimuli that were previously learned, or to learn new stimuli, without alteration of perception, language or intellect.
It differs from anomic aphasia, in which a person can describe an object but cannot recall its name. In agnosia, the person cannot describe the object at all. Depending on the sense affected, agnosias are classified as visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory and olfactory, the visual type being the most studied. The classification divided agnosias by Lissauer into associative and apperceptive. Agnosia results from a lesion to the brain. Brain lesions may be caused by cranioencephalic trauma, cerebrovascular accident, dementia or other neurological disorders.
What are aphasias and what are their causes?
Aphasias are defined as a disorder of language, caused by brain lesions, that affects the acquisition or use of language. In order to diagnose aphasia and differentiate it from other disorders, there must be a lesion of the central nervous system that affects language. The lesion is generally located in the fronto-parietal regions of the dominant hemisphere, normally the left one. Common causes include encephalopathy, cardiovascular accident, cranioencephalic trauma or tumor.
Types of aphasia
Several types of aphasia are possible, classified according to the affected mode of expression: oral, written and gestural, reception. Pure forms are almost never found.
Wernicke aphasia
This condition is basically a disorder of comprehension. Expression is also affected: although verbal language is fluent and abundant, it lacks meaning (paraphasias and neologisms). People with Wernicke aphasia often do not understand what is said to them, and non-verbal sounds (words = unrecognizable noise) can be confusing. Also called jargon aphasia, it includes difficulties with naming (anomia), reading and writing, and a lack of awareness of their own disabilities, affecting both expressive and receptive levels.
Motor aphasia
Depending on the location of the lesion, motor aphasias may be classified as:
Efferent motor aphasia: The person has difficulty producing the sequence of movements needed to articulate words or phrases. This is due to difficulty controlling the phonatory organs and their exact position in order to produce a sound. In severe cases the person may be unable to produce any sound at all, while in milder cases speech may be confusing, with similar-sounding sounds being mixed up.
Afferent motor aphasia (or Luria's motor aphasia): The lesion is located in the premotor region of the language area. It causes a lack of fluency in speech and an inability to link different articulations in a grammatically correct order, although the affected person is usually aware of the error.
Dynamic aphasia: Caused by a lesion in the anterior area of the left frontal lobe. People have difficulty organizing thoughts and turning them into verbal expression. It is observed in the initiative of the subject, a deficit in spontaneous expression, with stereotyped expressions.
Semantic aphasia: People with this type of aphasia have difficulty establishing the meaning of phrases, depending on the position of different words within the grammatical structure. It may also be accompanied by anomia, in which the person cannot name objects.
Pragmatic aphasia: Words are produced with correct syntax, but the messages are disorganized and chaotic, and vocabulary is restricted.
Total or global aphasia: Also called complete aphasia, in which oral and written language is practically abolished in its sensory, practical and motor aspects. It is also known as Broca and Wernicke aphasia combined. This disorder is generally associated with hemiplegia and its prognosis is severe.
Stress is the natural and necessary response that allows survival, and today it coincides with many pathologies. When this condition occurs in excess, an overload of energy is released into the body, causing illnesses, anomalies and pathologies that impede normal bodily functioning and development. This confusion is a defense mechanism that can end under certain circumstances, but it can also lead to serious health problems. Chronic stress, for its part, reduces the size of the brain area responsible for memory.
· Intrinsic motivation is evident when an individual finds pleasure in an activity without any obvious reward or external incentive. A hobby is a typical example, where the feeling of self-improvement or success is itself pleasurable.
· Extrinsic motivation appears when the action is not pleasurable in itself but is undertaken for the return received from the activity (for example, social approval, money, food or any other reward).
It was believed that the two types of motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic) were additive and could produce a greater combined level of motivation. Furthermore, extrinsic motivation may be useful to start an activity, but it may later be maintained through the intrinsic motivators of the activity itself.
Some authors distinguish two types of intrinsic motivation effects: one based on enjoyment and the other on obligation. In this context, obligation refers to giving reasons based on what the individual believes they should do. For example, a sense of responsibility may lead a person to help others, which can also be easily observed, rewarding or enjoyable. Evidently, this refers to self-demand, and the obligation to act is itself an intrinsic motivator, not an extrinsic one.
1. What is attention deficit?
Attention deficit (AD) is a condition that alters the capacity for concentration and attention in children with normal intelligence. It may or may not be associated with hyperactivity and impulsivity. What characterizes a child with attention deficit is the frequency and intensity of these behaviors compared with other children of the same age.
Attention deficit can have consequences for school performance (low grades), for personality development (low self-esteem, a sense of futility and frustration), and/or for social integration (difficulty relating to others, isolation, discipline problems, social rejection and discrimination).
Stuttering is a speech disorder, caused by dysfunction of the left hemisphere, which the body attempts to compensate for through the right hemisphere. Stuttering, or dysphemia, is a disorder of speech rather than language, characterized by involuntary interruptions in speech, facial and neck muscle tension, fear, and visible eye expression. It is determined by organic, psychological and social factors, which shape each individual's way of speaking, acting and feeling.
Peripheral nervous system:
It is made up of nerves that extend to all parts of the body.
Cranial nerves: In humans there are 12 pairs of cranial nerves that connect the brain with motor and sensory functions related to the head. These nerves pass through openings in the skull to enter or leave the brain. They are known by both their names and Roman numerals.
Spinal nerves: Along the spinal cord there are 31 pairs of spinal nerves, each pair corresponding to one side or the other of the body. Each spinal nerve is formed by the fusion of two different roots. The dorsal root carries sensory information from the body to the spinal cord, while the ventral root carries motor pathways from the spinal cord to the muscles.
The autonomic nervous system is part of the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system and has two components: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. Preganglionic neurons of the parasympathetic system are located in the brain and sacral regions of the spinal cord. Those of the sympathetic system are located in the thoracic and lumbar regions. These neurons innervate smooth muscle, organs and blood vessels. These opposing directions act together to achieve precise control.
The central nervous system (CNS) is made up of the brain and the spinal cord. They are protected by three membranes (meninges): the dura mater (outer membrane), the arachnoid (middle membrane) and the pia mater (inner membrane). The brain and spinal cord are protected by bony structures: the skull and the vertebral column respectively. These organs have cavities (the ventricles in the brain and the central canal in the spinal cord) filled with a transparent, colorless liquid called cerebrospinal fluid. Its functions are varied: it serves as a medium for exchanging certain substances, as part of the waste elimination system, to maintain ionic balance and as a mechanical buffer. The cells that make up the CNS form two very characteristic structures: gray matter, composed of neuron cell bodies, and white matter, composed mainly of nerve processes (dendrites and axons) whose function is to conduct information. In summary, the central nervous system is responsible for receiving and processing sensations, and for transmitting response orders to the various effectors. It is one of the most important systems in the human body.