Motor neuron disease
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and lateral sclerosis are both motor neuron diseases, progressive disorders of older people that affect neurons of the ventral horns, of the medullary motor nuclei, and of the corticospinal tracts. ALS, or Lou Gehrig disease, is characterized by muscle wasting due to loss of the ventral-horn cells (the lower motor neurons). Lateral sclerosis is the loss of axons in the lateral columns of the spinal cord (the upper motor neurons of the corticospinal tracts). A combination of upper and lower motor neuron signs is associated with these diseases, but muscle weakness and atrophy of two or more limbs is the primary feature. The brain, eyes, and sensory system are unaffected.
Nerve injuries
Nerve injuries function as neuronal neuropathies affecting the axon far from the cell body. Injuries are of three main grades of severity. In neurapraxia there is temporary blockage of impulse conduction, although the axons remain intact. More severe stretch or incision damage interrupts some axons and is called axonotmesis. Injury that actually severs the nerve is called neurotmesis; surgical reattachment of the severed nerve ends is necessary. Neurosurgery does not guarantee a rapid recovery, since new nerve sprouts grow down the nerve framework at the rate of 1 to 2 mm (0.04 to 0.08 inch) per day at most.
Demyelinating neuropathies
Demyelinating neuropathies are those in which the Schwann cells, which form myelin (the white, insulating sheath on the axon of many nerve fibres), are primarily affected and migrate away from the nerve. This process causes the insulating myelin of axon segments to be lost, and conduction of nerve impulses down the axon is blocked.
Acquired demyelinating neuropathies may arise as complications of diphtheria and diabetes, which, partly because of damage to the smallest blood vessels supplying the nerves, are sometimes accompanied by a variety of motor, sensory, autonomic, or mixed neuropathies. Some of these are extremely painful. If sensation is impaired, minor injuries can lead to severely deformed, but painless, “Charcot” joints. Leprosy (probably the most common cause of neuropathy in the world), metabolic diseases, cancer, and myeloma or other dysproteinemias also cause demyelinating neuropathies.
Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (also known as peroneal muscular atrophy because of the special involvement of shin muscles) is a genetically acquired demyelinating neuropathy. High foot arches, distal motor weakness and atrophy, and reduced reflexes are the main symptoms; sometimes the nerves are greatly thickened. The condition first appears in childhood, though patients have a normal life span.
Guillain-Barré syndrome is an acute inflammatory neuropathy. In this disease an autoimmune attack upon the myelin sheath of the motor nerves leads to progressive weakness and reflex loss with only slight sensory changes. Weakness rarely may become so severe that the patient needs mechanical help in breathing, but if further complications do not occur, the disease will remit within a few weeks. In severe cases, blood transfusion may speed recovery.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a common ischemic neuropathy in which the median nerve is compressed at the wrist. Ischemic neuropathies are those disorders in which nerve compression leads to decreased blood supply and subsequent damage to the Schwann cells. The nerve narrows at the site of pressure, although the axon remains intact. Carpal tunnel syndrome causes pain, numbness, tingling, and weakness of the fingers and thumb, especially at night and in the morning. Cubital tunnel syndrome is a similar problem affecting the ulnar nerve at the elbow. Surgical intervention may be necessary to release the entrapped nerve.
Neuropathies of the autonomic nerves may be hereditary, as in Riley-Day syndrome, or acquired, as in complications of partial nerve injuries, diabetes mellitus, tabes dorsalis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and other toxic or metabolic disorders (among which alcoholism and certain drug therapies are the most common). Damage to the sympathetic or parasympathetic pathways in the hypothalamus or brainstem may produce similar symptoms—for example, faintness due to disordered regulation of blood pressure and heart rate, disturbances of bladder and bowel control, impotence, and impaired visual accommodation. Some relief may be obtained from medications that replace a deficient neurotransmitter, increase the blood volume, or compress the limbs so that blood no longer pools in the veins.
Disease of the neuromuscular junction
Myasthenia gravis is the most common disease of the neuromuscular junction. At this site the motor nerve impulse normally triggers the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which diffuses across the synaptic gap between the terminal of the nerve and the specialized end-plate region of the muscle-fibre membrane. In myasthenia gravis, receptors in the end-plate region are partially coated with an antibody, so that the acetylcholine molecules are blocked, depolarization of the muscle fibre cannot occur, and the muscle cannot contract. The amount of acetylcholine released from the nerve terminal is also reduced. As a result, muscle contraction is possible after a period of rest, but sustained contractions quickly weaken. This fatigability is especially present in the eye muscles, causing drooping of the lids on looking upward and to diplopia (double vision). The muscles of the throat, limbs, and respiration may also be involved.
Myasthenia gravis is diagnosed by electrical studies of neuromuscular transmission and by single-fibre electromyography (see above Neurological examination: Diagnostic tests and procedures). Treatment involves the removal of the thymus gland (which may produce the antibody) and medications that augment the effect of acetylcholine and suppress the immune system.