CHILDHOOD DISORDERS

Disorders Symptom Cause Treatments

1. AUTISM • Impaired social skills • Dysregulation of • NO CURE

(ASD) • Verbal and nonverbal immune system • Respond well to
communication • Abnormal, specialized
difficulties accelerated growth behavioral
• Narrow, obsessive of brain between 1 therapies.
interests or repetitive and 2 years old.
behaviors. (potential marker for
early evaluation).
2. ATTENTION • Inattentive, hyperactive • Catecholamine • NO CURE
DEFICIT or impulsive behaviors transmission • Parent education
HYPERACTIVITY • Hard concentration problems • Meds such as
DISORDER • Reduced stimulants, but just
(ADHD) catecholamine overall drugs for
transmission lead to enhancing
weakened prefrontal catecholamine
circuit, and because transmission.
prefrontal circuit is
important for
attention, therefore
less attention.
3. DOWNS • Intellectual disabilities • Extra copy of • NO CURE
SYNDROME • Upward slant to the eyes chromosome 21,
• Increased risk of usually present in
congenital heart defects, eggs.
respitaroy problems • Increased risk with
• Develop as typical the age of the mother
children but slower rate
4. DYSLEXIA • Reading disability • Damage to three • Break words into
important left smaller units
hemisphere neural • Practice reading
systems stories
1. Parieto-temporal,
occipito-temporal
2. Broca’s area
• Damage to Posterior
brain
 ADDICTION
Activiate brain reward system to make people keep
wanting more

Addictive material Cause Treatments

1. Nicotine • Acts through the well-known
acetylcholine nicotinic receptor
• Releases dopamine in the brain
regions that control motivation,
resulting in addiction
• Stimulates the adrenal glands,
and release epinephrine and
that causes a sudden release of
glucose with increase in blood
pressure, respiration, heart rate.
2. Alcohol – (cause • Easily absorbed in bloodstream
mental
retardation, liver • Decrease the function with
problem) NMDA receptors, lead to coma.
• Nicotine gum, nasal spray etc. that are
helpful in producing less severe
physiological alterations than using
tobacco products.
• Buropion, a medication for treating
nicotine addiction, directly prevents
nicotine from activiting brain reward
circuitry through acetylcholine nicotinic
receptor.
• Naltrexone, a medication meant for
heroin addiction, works by blocking
opiod receptors.

• Activate the endogenous opiod

system, people have a similar
feeling with opiod
3. Marijuana • THC, the active ingredient in • NO CURE
marijuana, binds to cannabinoid
receptors, which coordinate
movement

• Hippocampus also have a lot of

receptors for THC, explaining
why people have poor short-
term memory and problems
processing compex information.
4. Opiates • Increase the amount of • Methadone, an oral opioid that helps
(discomfort to dopamine released in the brain to keep craving, withdrawl, and relapse
severe muscle reward system and mimic the under control.
pain, diarrhea, effects of endogenous opioids. • Naloxone, a medication that use for
unpleassant blocking the the opiate receptors that
mood) opiates produce no pleasuable effects
when they are taken.
• Buprenorphine, are use for heroin
addiction, and that causes a weaker
effect on the receptors than
methadone.
5. Psychostimulants • Greatly elevate the brain • NO CURE YET
(Cocaine and chemical dopamine in specific
amphetamines) brain regions leads to addiction.
 DEGENERATIVE DISORDERS
Disorders Symptom Cause
1. Alzheimer’s • Forgetfulness,
Disease disorientation as to time
or place, difficulty with
concentration and
language.
• In the final stages, the
affected individual is
incapable of self-care
2. Amyotrophic • Paralysis of muscle, first
Lateral in thehands and feet,
Sclerosis and eventually all
(ALS) muscles under under
voluntary control are
affected.
• Death is usually caused
by respiratory failure
5. Huntington’s • Involuntary movements
Disease and also accompanied
with mood swings,
depression, slurred
speech.
Treatments
• Too much beta- • ONLY TEMPORARY
amyloid cause the MITIGATION OF
decrease in SOME SYMPTOMS
neurotransmitter and
the interconnection • Five drugs, four
between neurons, prevent the
and that eventually breakdown of
causes death of acetylcholine and
neuron. the last one
regulates
• Shrank of cerebral glutamate.
cortex
• Anti-amyloid
therapies are the
goal for future
treatments.
• Motor neuron in the • NO CURE
brain and spinal cord
begin to disintegrate, • Anti-glutamate
and the signals can drug slows the
not carried to the rest disease’s
of the body. This will progression slowly.
result in the lack of
stimulation and the
disuse of muscles.
• Hereditary brain • NO CURE
disorders
• The huntington’s
protein, which is
widely distributed in
the brain and it is
associated with
turning genes on.
People with
 Huntington’s usually
have abnormal and
toxic function among
these proteins.

6. Parkinson’s • Slowness of movement, • Loss of dopamine in • Drug: levodopa,

disease rigidity and walking and substantia nigra. which is converted
balance impairment. to dopamine in the
• 40 percent of cells brain.
must be lost before
symptoms occur • Deep Brain
stimulation
•
 PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS

Disorders Symptom Cause Treatments

1. Anxiety • Housebond OCD: OCD:

Disorders • Occur with depression • Abnormalities in • Seretonergic
• OCD cortical and deep antidepressants
• PTSD OCD: areas of the brain, • SSRIS
• Repetitive thoughts and which means the
behaviors central nervous Panic disorder and
system changes Phobias:
Panid disorder and Phobias: • SSRIS
• Impending doom PTSD: • Antidepressants
• Sweating • Norepinephrine
• Weakness released in the brain PTSD:
• Dizziness… during stress remain • Treat with similar
at heightened levels drugs used for
PTSD: lower blood
• Helplessness or horror • Alterations in certain pressure
• Hyperarousal GABA receptors in • Antidepressants
CNS

2. Tourette • Motor and vocal tics, • Abnormal activity in • SSRIS

Syndrome repetitive, involuntary basal ganglia • Antidepressants
movments or uterrance • Behavioral
that are rapid • Maybe excess in therapies
certain chemicals,
• Problems with learning, such as dopamine
difficulties with
attention
3. Major • Sadness, Hoplessness, • Disturbances in the • Deep brain
Depression Pessimism hypothalamus, too stimulation
much production of • Antidepressants
• Disturbance of sleep and stress hormones drugs that increase
appetite the level of
• Fail to shut down norepinephrine or
• Difficulties with secretion of the serotonin in
concentration stress hormone synpases
cortisol
4. Bipolar • Deep depression
disorder • Manic highs
5. Schizophrenia Positive:
• Delusions, hallucinations
• Disorganized speech and
behaviors
Negative:
• Removal of normal
processes
• Decrease in emotions
• Influenced by genes • Lithium, improve
all manic
symptoms and
stablizie moods
• GABA, glutamate and • Antipsychotic
other chemicals drug:
might have to do with chlorpromazine.
this disorder.
• Dopamine also
• Several genes
mutation
 INJURY AND ILLNESS
Disorders Symptom
1. Brain • Develop within brain
Tumors tissue
• Primary or metastatic
Primary tumors start
from brain, whereas
metastatic
• Seizures and headaches
2. Multiple • Numbness, clumsiness
Sclerosis and blurred vision due
to impaired spinal cord,
cerebellum and optic
nerve.
• Also a lot of other
symptoms
Relapsing MS will have
temporary symptoms, and
progressive MS is the
accumulation and
permanent symptoms.
3. Neurological • Depends on different
Trauma scenarios
Cause Treatments
• Release glutamate at • Surgery
toxic concentrations,
glutamate kills • Radiation-used to
neurons near the stop a tumor’s
tumor and making growth and cause it
room for its to shrank
expansion.
• Chemotherapy
destroys tumor cells
that remains after
surgery
• Steroid drugs relive
brain swelling and
antiepileptic drugs
control seizures
• Body’s natural • NO CURE
defenses attack the • Steroids are
myelin sheath that effecctive for
cover the axons of shortening attacks
neurons in the CNS.
This then lead to a
damage to the nerve
fibers.
• The axon’s sheath,
as a result, is either
repaired or replaced
by scars.
• Different accidents • NO CURE
• New nerve cells will • Removal of
be born in adult cerebrospinal fluid
brain after injury, • Methylprednisolone,
but these new cells only FDA approved
 are not sufficient treatment for spinal
enough to cord injury.
regenerate the
brain.
4. Pain • Pain • NSAIDS work by • Local Anesthesia,
inhibit the COX loss of sensation in
enzymes, which a limited area of a
make the person’s body, used
inflammatory and in surgery. It works
pain-producing by temporarily
chemical interrupting the
prostaglandin action of all nerve
fibers by interfering
with the actions of
sodium channels.

• Four types of pain

killers, AKA NSAIDS.

• NSAIDS and Opioids

are for physical
pain.

• Antipileptic and
antidepressant
drugs are for
neuropathic pain.
Pain including, but
not limited to,
numbness, post-
stroke pain.

• Opiod receptors are

in the spinal cord

5. Seizures and • Generalized seizures: • Sudden disorderly • Antiepleptic drugs,

Epilepsy discharges of target on ion
Loss of consciousness interconnected channels or
and can cause a range neurons in the brain neurotransmitter
of behavioral changes, that temporarily receptors
including sudden alter one or more
changes in muscle tone brain functions.
 • Partial seizures: • Generalized • Generalized
Seizures: eplepsies can be
Maintains controlled by drugs
consciousness and has Stimultaneous
behavioral changes, can excessive electrical • Partial eplepsies are
produce localized activity over a wide difficult to treat, so
visual, auditory, and area of the brain, surgery come in
skin disturbance. often involving the place.
thalamus and
cerebral cortex. • Electrical
stimulation is also a
• Partial eplepsies: therapy.

Excessive electrical
activity in one area
of the brain

6. Stroke • Paralysis on one side of
the body and loss of the
speech
• Blood vessel bringing • tPA, clot dissolving
oxygen and nutriens drug, restore
were blocked by a circulation before
blood clot or some oxygen cause
other particle, permanent
causing death of damage.
neurons • Surgery can also
clear clogs in
arteries
• Anticoagulant drugs
can reduce the
likelihood of clots
forming