What is Neurodegeneration?

Written by Pooja Gopinathrao

Nerodegeneration is the damage of nervous system cells (brain and spinal cord cells). These can slowly complicate, leading to complications like Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Lou Gehrig's disease. Unfortunately, there is no cure for neurodegeneration. Some of the symptoms of neurodegenerative disorders are anxiety, difficulty with movement, forgetting very often, memory loss, and mood changes. Neurodegeneration causes irreversible damage to the nervous system. The symptoms get worse and develop later in life or over time. These disorders can be diagnosed through neurological exams, imaging scans and histopathology. MRI scans can help conclude changes in the brain. Some neurodegenerative conditions like Pick’s disease aren’t diagnosable while you’re alive. This is when histopathology is used. Histopathology is basically where samples of the brain are examined under a microscope. Unfortunately, this can only be done after death, looking at autopsies.  

Factors that can cause neurodegeneration are aging, tumors, viruses, poor health habits (like smoking and high alcohol consumption), and genetics. You can’t treat neurodegeneration, but you can prevent it. You can prevent it by eating on a diet, avoiding sugary foods, avoiding concussions (wear safety equipment to protect your brain health), and watch your weight. Blood pressure and diabetes can contribute to circulatory problems that can affect your brain. Sadly, once neurodegeneration starts it is a lifetime diagnosis. It is incurable and you’re stuck with it forever.

Neurodegeneration can cause other diseases affecting day-to-day life. When your brain cells die, eventually the job they were assigned to do ultimately fails. For example, when parts of your brain that controls your muscles die, your muscle control weakens and paralysis increases. Just like that, as your neurons die and weaken, different parts of your brain can dysfunction. This can lead to dementia-type diseases with memory loss and confusion, demyelinating diseases causing numbness, pain, and coordination issues, or parkinson's-type diseases which cause shaking and balance issues. 

There are many different neurodegenerative diseases with so many different types of conditions and factors. These progress at different rates and can even worsen faster than usual. The longer you have a neurodegenerative disease, the more complicated it gets.Its important to respect those with neurodegenerative diseases and help them as much as you can.

References

Neurodegenerative Diseases. Cleveland Clinic. (2024, December 19). https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24976-neurodegenerative-diseases#symptoms-and-causes

Written by Pooja Gopinathrao from MEDILOQUY