Brain Atrophy : Causes and Symptoms

Brain atrophy, more properly known as cerebral atrophy, is a condition in which cells in the brain are lost, or the connections between them are damaged. The prognosis for patients with this condition varies, depending on the type of atrophy, the location, and the cause. Often, declines in brain function emerge, and the patient will grow progressively worse over time as a result of the damage to the brain.
A number of conditions involving the brain can lead to brain atrophy, including epilepsy, traumatic brain injuries, strokes, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and Huntington's disease. Brain atrophy has also been observed in patients with chronic wasting, also known as cachexia, with brain atrophy being particularly common in AIDS patients who develop cachexia.

Causes of Brain Atrophy

Normally brain stem atrophy is caused due to aging. But in some cases, the wastage of brain cells can be triggered due to some illnesses, which may cause premature wastage or even speed up the process. Given below is a list of reasons why the cells in the body's most important organ are lost;
Epilepsy, which is a neurological disorder that can result in seizures.
Kearns Sayre syndrome, a disease that causes weakness to the muscles due to mitochondrial encephalomyopathies, which is the changes that occur in the mitochondria of the cells. This syndrome tends to interfere with the proper functioning of the neurons.
A traumatic brain injury resulting in stroke.
Some infectious diseases like neurosyphilis, AIDS and encephalitis which can lead to the damage of the brain cells leading to brain shrinkage by destroying the neurons and their axons.
A condition called multiple sclerosis, where the cerebral tissue becomes inflamed and there is damage to the myelin (a protective cover on the nerve fibers) due to the growth of lesions.
Cerebral palsy, where there is an impairment in the coordination of the motor neurons in the damaged areas caused due to lesions.
Krabbe disease, where the myelin sheath that protects the axons (also known as nerve fibers) is destroyed.
Certain genetic disorders like Huntington's disease that leads to an increase in the toxic levels of proteins in the neurons.
Brain Atrophy Symptoms
In some patients chronic or persistent wastage of brain stem cells called cachexia is observed. Brain cell atrophy is very common in people who are suffering from AIDS. An individual who suffers from this brain related disease will show the following symptoms;
An illness, known as dementia, where the person suffers from a loss of memory and cognitive skills. The inability to learn, loss of memory and disorientation are some of the signs that an individual is a dementia patient.
A condition related to language disorders called aphasias, where the individual finds it difficult to understand language. There are two types of aphasias - expressive aphasias and receptive aphasias. In expressive aphasias, the individual may often use incomplete sentences, odd choices of words, misspell certain words and use disjointed clauses. Receptive aphasias leads to impaired and improper comprehension skills.

Another symptom of cerebral atrophy is seizures, which results in convulsions, repetitive movements of the limbs and loss of consciousness.