View Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain on Amazon.com “Three pounds of the most complex materials we’ve discovered in the universe…is built of cells called neurons and glia-hundreds of billion of them…[that] are connected to one another in a network of such staggering complexity that it bankrupts human language and necessitates a new kinds […]

Depending on what statistic you’re looking at anywhere from 30-40% of strokes result from an unknown cause. That’s right. A full work-up of these patients reveals no cardioembolic causes, no large-artery occlusive disease, and typically an absence of risk factors. It’s a diagnosis of exclusion and it’s called cryptogenic. So what actually causes these strokes to […]

Let’s get a little more familiar (and look at a cool image) with the path blood takes as it leaves the heart and travels up to the brain. If you don’t recall what we covered in Blood Flow Through the Brain Part 1, take a moment to review. Remember the above picture? Now let’s take a […]

So let’s take a look at a case which Tom Bouthillet from the EMS 12 Lead blog posted and assess it from a neuro perspective. Let’s start by reviewing his post. Let’s approach the case in a linear fashion (I’ve bolded certain elements of interest): This gentlemen was perfectly normal until he walked outside, lost his balance and fell, […]

We all remember blood flow through the heart being pounded into our heads in school. Knowing the blood flow through the brain is every bit as important and proficiency in the basics of cerebral vasculature can quickly improve your assessment of stroke patients. There is a concept in stroke diagnosis known as localization. This refers to […]

The human brain is constructed of about 100 billion individual neurons (or nerve cells). Each neuron is plays a part in making someone who they are: memories, behavior, quirks, and preferences. When a patient suffers a seizure it’s due to rapid neuronal firing. When a patient becomes unresponsive due to hypoglycemia it’s caused by lack of glucose […]