Contents:
- Medical Video: Does Your Brain Shrink As You Get Older?
- What is brain atrophy?
- What are the symptoms of brain atrophy?
- Dementia
- Seizures
- Aphasia
- Causes and risk factors for brain atrophy
- General brain atrophy
- Focal brain atrophy
- What can be done to prevent or overcome brain atrophy?
Medical Video: Does Your Brain Shrink As You Get Older?
The human brain consists of various nerve cells that are connected and play a role in regulating the functions of other organs. Function is very dependent on brain nerve cells or connected neurons. Now, when neurons or connections between neurons are damaged or even lost, the brain can shrink and change shape. This brain size shrinkage condition is called brain atrophy. Brain atrophy can lead to serious cognitive disorders, such as dementia.
What is brain atrophy?
Brain atrophy is a condition of continuous loss of brain cells and connections between brain cells and tends to occur for a long time. This condition is also common to overtake or present as a symptom of various diseases of the brain over time.
The loss of cells and tissue of neurons in the brain causes the size of the brain to shrink and shrink considerably compared to its original size. This can occur as a whole (general) which causes the brain to appear completely deflated, or only occurs in certain areas of the brain (focal) which causes a person to lose certain organ functions that are connected with certain brain areas that experience atrophy.
If the two lobes of the cerebrum are shrinking, then the conscious mind's functions (such as emotions, feelings, awareness & perception) and various subconscious functions (such as moving muscles, responding to stimulus & making decisions) can ultimately be equally disturbed.
What are the symptoms of brain atrophy?
Brain atrophy can be characterized by various brain diseases, especially:
Dementia
Dementia is characterized by a gradual decline in memory capacity and intelligence functions and can interfere with the ability to work and interact significantly socially. Depreciation of brain size in dementia causes sufferers to experience impaired orientation, difficulty in learning and abstract thinking, difficulty recognizing space and impaired executive functions such as decision making, arranging and sorting objects.
Seizures
Seizures can be a variety of symptoms characterized by disorientation, repetitive movements, loss of consciousness and convulsions or a very rapid process of muscle contraction and relaxation.
Aphasia
Aphasia is a disorder that causes a person to have difficulty communicating, especially a disorder in speaking and understanding a language. Aphasia can be receptive, namely difficulty in understanding conversation and expressiveness, namely difficulty in determining the choice of sentences and difficulty in saying sentences or phrases that are intact.
Causes and risk factors for brain atrophy
Brain size shrinkage can be distinguished based on the pattern of occurrence - brain atrophy general or focal.
General brain atrophy
General brain atrophy occurs in all parts of the brain. This can be caused by:
- Damage due to impaired blood supply to the brain
- Damage due to head trauma both characterized by bleeding or bruising (contusion)
- Having a disease that can damage brain neuron cells (neurodegenerative) - such as Parkinson's disease, Hutington's disease, Alzheimer's dementia, Lewy body dementia, Pick's disease, corticobasal degeneration and damage to the myelin membrane.
Focal brain atrophy
Focal brain atrophy only occurs in certain areas of the brain. This can be caused by:
- Old age factor
- Diseases of the brain blood vessels - such as strokes
- End-stage multiple sclerosis
- History of drug abuse
- Complications of head trauma - especially in brain white matter (diffuse axonal injury)
- Complications due to infection in parts of the brain - for example meningitis, AIDS, encephalitis
- Having vascular dementia
- Complications of neurodegenerative diseases progressive supranuclear palsy
In addition to the above causes, serious vitamin B12 deficiency and excessive alcohol consumption also influence the severity of brain size shrinkage. The causes of brain shrinkage also determine the speed of damage to brain cells. Therefore handling disease or conditions that cause brain atrophy is very necessary to prevent the shrinkage from getting worse.
What can be done to prevent or overcome brain atrophy?
Brain atrophy is a permanent condition because damage and decreased volume and size of the brain cannot be repaired. So the action that can be taken is prevention and slowing of atrophy in brain cells.
Prevention in general can be done by applying a healthy lifestyle to prevent diseases of the brain blood vessels and avoid excessive alcohol consumption. Handling of causative factors or brain cell damage is very necessary to overcome the acceleration of the atrophy process. As well as lifestyle changes with active physical activity and supplementation of B vitamins (vitamins B12, B6 and folate) are known to slow the process of brain damage.
