Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience

Neurodegenerative diseases of the central nervous system are characterized by progressive neuronal death and neurological dysfunction, leading to increased disability and a loss of cognitive or motor functions. Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis have neurodegeneration as a primary feature. However, in other CNS diseases such as multiple sclerosis, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and spinal cord injury, neurodegeneration follows another insult, such as demyelination or ischemia. Although there are different primary causes to these diseases, they all share a hallmark of Neuroinflammation. Neuroinflammation can occur through the activation of resident immune cells such as microglia, cells of the innate and adaptive peripheral immune system, meningeal inflammation and autoantibodies directed toward components of the CNS. Despite chronic inflammation being pathogenic in these diseases, local inflammation after insult can also promote endogenous regenerative processes in the CNS, which are key to slowing disease progression. The normal aging process in the healthy brain is associated with a decline in physiological function, a steady increase in levels of neuroinflammation, brain shrinkage, and memory deficits.

Neuropsychiatry or Organic Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with psychiatry as it relates to neurology, in an effort to understand and attribute behavior to the interaction of neurobiology and social psychology factors. Within neuropsychiatry, the mind is considered "as an emergent property of the brain", whereas other behavioral and neurological specialties might consider the two as separate entities. Neuropsychiatry preceded the current disciplines of psychiatry and neurology, which previously had common training; however, those disciplines have subsequently diverged and are typically practiced separately

Currently, neuropsychiatry has become a growing subspecialty of psychiatry as it closely relates the fields of neuropsychology and behavioral neurology, and attempts to utilize this understanding to better treat illnesses that fall under both neurological and mental disorder classifications.

The drugs are characterized by the chemical substances that communicate with the neurons which have different impacts on nervous system. A drug used to treat Neuropsychiatric, Neuropsychological, or Nervous-system disorders. Neuro-pharmaceutics focuses on identification of therapeutic targets, and then translating those discoveries into drug and therapy development. Research in Neuropharmaceutics includes: drug discovery for limiting high frequency activity in Epilepsy; drug transport proteins that control drug distribution to target tissues; spinal delivery of analgesics to chronic pain treatment; drugs for the treatment of depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia; intranasal delivery methods for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease; development of strategies to evaluate therapeutics on preclinical models of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease; anti-atherogenic and anti-diabetic therapies for the prevention and treatment of AD and other age-related dementias; and development of analgesic agents for chronic pain.

Treatment of disorders that affect the nervous system. An older term for the treatment of psychological, psychiatric, and nervous disorders. Innovative treatments include neurochemical and molecular targets, genes and epigenetic therapies, cognitive construct-based behavioral Neurotherapeutics is a quarterly peer-reviewed medical journal covering research on experimental treatments of neurological disorders. There is a profound increase in the diagnostics procedure and drug discovery in the field of Neurology. It includes Stem cells and treatment, Nerve injury and repair Clinical Case report, Neurogenesis, cell and gene based approach and Neurotransmitter release and cell repair. 

Neurocognitive disorder is a general term that describes decreased mental function due to a medical disease other than a psychiatric illness. It is often used synonymously (but incorrectly) with dementia.

Neurooncology is a branch of medicine that concerns cancers of the brain and spinal cord. Cancers of the nervous system are often severe conditions that eventually become life threatening. Among the malignant brain cancers, gliomas of the brainstem and pons, glioblastoma multiforme, and high-grade (highly anaplastic) astrocytoma are among the worst. In these cases, untreated survival usually amounts to only a few months, and survival with current radiation and chemotherapy treatments may extend that time from around a year to a year and a half, possibly two or more, depending on the patient's condition, immune function, treatments used, and the specific type of malignant brain neoplasm. Surgery may in some cases be curative, but, as a general rule, malignant brain cancers tend to regenerate and emerge from remission easily, especially highly malignant cases. In such cases, the goal is to excise as much of the mass (tumor cells) and as much of the tumor margin as possible without endangering vital functions or other important cognitive abilities. 

Cognitive control is the process by which goals or plans influence behaviour. Also called executive control, this process can inhibit automatic responses and influence working memory. Cognitive control supports flexible, adaptive responses and complex goal-directed thought. Some disorders, such as schizophrenia and ADHD, are associated with impairments of executive function.

Cognition is composed of several separate mental abilities or domains that interact to form global cognition. These mental abilities are generally categorized into executive functioning, memory/attention, speed of processing, language, and psychomotor functioning. Even within each of these larger abilities, subsets of these mental abilities are observed. For example, memory can be categorized into declarative memory, episodic memory, semantic memory, procedural memory, visual memory, verbal memory, and prospective memory; furthermore, within each of these memory types, further distinctions can be made. Different brain regions and structures are responsible for each of these particular mental abilities. Thus, if these brain regions and structures are compromised by disease-related insults, this will produce cognitive deficits in certain mental abilities.

A number of diseases such as hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes are known to negatively impact neurological functioning, which in turn reduces cognitive efficiency and creates specific cognitive deficits. The patterns of cognitive deficits can be referred to as cognitive profiles.

Behavioral neuroscience uncovers how the brain influences behavior by applying neurobiology and neurophysiology to the study of physiology, genetics, and developmental mechanisms. As the name suggests, this subfield is the link between neuroscience and behavior. Behavioral neuroscience focuses on nerve cells, neurotransmitters, and neural circuits to investigate the biological processes that underlie both normal and abnormal behavior.

One of the major aims of cognitive neuroscience is to identify the deficiencies within neural systems that mark various psychiatry and neurodegenerative disorders. Cognitive neuroscientists tend to have a background in experimental psychology, neurobiology, neurology, physics, and mathematics.

Neurological disorders are medically defined as disorders that affect the brain as well as the nerves found throughout the human body and the spinal cord. Structural, biochemical or electrical abnormalities in the brain, spinal cord or other nerves can result in a range of symptoms. Examples of symptoms include paralysis, muscle weakness, poor coordination, loss of sensation, seizures, confusion, pain and altered levels of consciousness

Degenerative nerve diseases can be serious or life-threatening. It depends on the type. Most of them have no cure. Treatments may help improve symptoms, relieve pain, and increase mobility.

In addition to adding to our understanding of how the human mind works, the field of cognitive psychology has also had an impact on approaches to mental health. Before the 1970s, many mental health treatments were focused more on psychoanalytic, behavioral, and humanistic approaches.

The so-called "cognitive revolution" put a greater emphasis on understanding the way people process information and how thinking patterns might contribute to psychological distress. Thanks to research in this area, new approaches to treatment were developed to help treat depression, anxiety, phobias, and other psychological disorders.

Cognitive behavioral therapy and rational emotive behavior therapy are two methods in which clients and therapists focus on the underlying cognitions, or thoughts, that contribute to psychological distress.

Brain imaging refers to techniques that employ an interaction between brain tissue and various forms of energy (e.g., electromagnetic or particle radiation), rather than physical incision, to capture positional data about the structure and function of the brain. Such data are used to create corresponding brain maps. Structural images delineate brain tissues such as white versus gray matter, vasculature, and bone, based on their physical properties (tissue density or nuclear resonance characteristics). Functional images capture physiological activities in the brain (metabolism, blood flow, chemical composition, absorption) typically coupled to neuronal firing. Functional imaging has two possible aims. In clinical applications the goal is typically to differentiate normal physiological activities in a healthy brain from those in perturbed states (e.g., stroke, Alzheimer’s disease). 

Sensory neuroscience is a subfield of neuroscience which tries to understand the behaviour of neurons in sensory systems. Since the neural code is unknown, it is difficult to begin understanding the brain by looking at the behaviour of more abstract neurons. Since it is possible to experimentally control the stimulus a sensory system experiences, by recording responses from neurons while exposing sensory systems to stimuli it may be possible to gain insights into how the outside world is represented. Some scientists hope that knowing how information about the outside world is represented in the brain will be an important stepping stone in our understanding of how the brain as a whole functions.

The basic units of the nervous system are exquisitely specialized cell types called neurons and glia. Neurons, with their extensive dendrites and axons, produce unique electrical events and use a complex, highly evolved system for communicating with one another. Glia  are a diverse family of cells that perform a variety of supportive functions throughout the nervous system.

Cellular and molecular neuroscientists seek a thorough understanding of the fundamental processes within and among neurons and glia, which emerge from the interplay of a large number of signaling molecules, ion channels, and numerous other fine-tuned components.

Neuropathology is a specialty within the study of pathology focused on the disease of the brain, spinal cord, and neural tissue. This includes the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. Tissue analysis comes from either surgical biopsies or post mortem autopsies. Common tissue samples include muscle fibers and nervous tissue. Common applications of neuropathology include studying samples of tissue in patients who have Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, dementia, Huntington's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, mitochondria disease, and any disorder that has neural deterioration in the brain. 

Neuroanesthesia is a field of anesthesiology which focuses on neurosurgery. Anesthesia is not used during the middle of an "awake" brain surgery. Awake brain surgery is where the patient is conscious for the middle of the procedure and sedated for the beginning and end. This procedure is used when the tumor does not have clear boundaries and the surgeon wants to know if they are invading on critical regions of the brain which involve functions like talking, cognition, vision, and hearing. It will also be conducted for procedures which the surgeon is trying to combat epileptic seizures.

Drugs and other mind-altering chemicals can influence all aspects of human psychology, including cognition, emotion, motivation, and performance. For known drugs, predictions of the type, onset, magnitude, and/or duration of effects in individuals or groups can be limited by incomplete knowledge of the interacting processes that govern drug effects. Clinical, field, and research experience reveals that drug effects in individual humans arise from interactions of multiple factors, including (but not limited to) the drug itself; its dose and route of use; the demand characteristics of the current situation; and the individual’s health, physiology, and experience with drugs and performance demands. Attempts to predict the effects of new drugs are hampered by the possible surprise in structure, targets, delivery, mechanisms of action, interactions with other drugs, and varying performance conditions.

Brain plasticity refers to changes that occur in brain organization and function as a result of experience. There is now considerable evidence that brain activity associated with a psychological state or process can change throughout life as a function of factors such as sleep, maturation, experience, damage etc. Bain plasticity represents a challenge to those seeking to develop neuronal indexes for psychological states—i.e., outcomes, concomitants, markers, and invariants—on an individual level, because structural, organizational, and functional differences between individuals etc.