Disorders of the optic nerve or of the pathways traveling to the occipital lobe cause visual loss in the affected eye. In the early stages of disease, when the optic process is irritating the nerve rather than decreasing its conducting ability, phenomena such as streaks of light may be seen. When the optic pathways are affected within the brain, the precise location of the disease can be determined by testing the pattern of visual loss affecting both eyes. Pain in the eyes is sometimes due to neuritis of the optic nerves, but it is usually caused by ocular disease. Optic neuritis causes a total or partial loss of vision. It is a condition that is occasionally inherited, but it may also occur because of infection, drug or chemical toxicity, ischemia, or demyelinating disease. Compression of the nerve by a tumour or aneurysm may eventually cause demyelination, which results in optic atrophy. Papilledema is a condition characterized by a swelling of the nerve head with fluid as a result of raised intracranial pressure.
Oculomotor, trochlear, and abducens nerves
Compression of the oculomotor, trochlear, or abducens nerves may be caused by lesions, diabetes, vascular disease, head injury, infection, or neuropathy. In the brainstem, multiple sclerosis, stroke, Wernicke disease (see below Brainstem), and tumours are possible causes of compression. Double vision is the primary symptom; if the oculomotor nerve is affected, the pupil may be enlarged as well. In Horner syndrome, interruption of the long sympathetic fibres passing from the brainstem to the pupil causes drooping of the eyelid and a small pupil.
Argyll Robertson pupils, small and irregular pupils that do not react to light but constrict on accommodation to close vision, may be associated with syphilis or other brainstem diseases. Adie pupils constrict very slowly in light and dilate slowly when the light is removed.
In progressive external ophthalmoplegia, a disorder of the central nervous system mechanisms controlling gaze, the eyes may fail to move in one or another direction. Other neurological problems, such as parkinsonism, dementia, or neuropathy, may be associated with this condition. Local lesions of the brainstem may also cause paralysis of eye movement, as may severe myasthenia and myopathies affecting the eye muscles.
The jerky eye movements of nystagmus usually signify brainstem, vestibular, or cerebellar disease, but they may also be complications of very poor eyesight or may occur as a congenital defect.
When any of the three oculomotor nerves are affected, the axes of the eyes are not able to remain parallel, so light falls on different parts of the two retinas and double vision results.
Trigeminal nerve
Numbness of the face is commonly due to compression of the trigeminal nerve caused by a tumour in the cranial cavity or nasopharynx or by a brainstem disorder. Trigeminal neuralgia, also called tic douloureux, is an intense, repetitive, pain felt in the lower half of one side of the face. It occurs primarily in people over 55 years of age. Symptoms may be relieved by medications such as carbamazepine, diphenylhydantoin, or baclofen or by surgical removal of a loop of normal artery where it impinges upon the nerve at its exit from the brainstem.
Facial nerve
The facial nerve is damaged most commonly by swelling within the facial canal in the temporal bone that results from viral infection. This causes Bell palsy, an abrupt weakness of all the facial muscles on one side of the face that is often accompanied by pain around the ear, unusual loudness of sounds on the same side, and loss of taste on the front of the tongue.
The herpes simplex virus, lesions of the brainstem and of the angle between the cerebellum and pons, middle-ear infections, skull fractures, diseases affecting the parotid gland, and Guillain-Barré syndrome all may cause facial palsy.
In hemifacial spasm repetitive twitching of one side of the face occurs. Irritation of the facial nerve as it leaves the brainstem appears to be the cause, and in many cases relief is obtained through surgical decompression.
Vestibulocochlear nerve
When both divisions of the vestibulocochlear nerve are affected by disease, symptoms may include ringing in the ear (tinnitus), a sensation of spinning (vertigo), and other symptoms such as deafness. Deafness, if not caused by middle-ear disease, suggests damage to the cochlear portion of the nerve. Compression of the nerve at the cerebellopontine angle by a tumour, an aneurysm, a meningioma, certain systemic diseases, drug toxicity, small strokes, or Ménière disease may cause hearing loss. In Ménière disease an accumulation of fluid in the inner ear produces increasing deafness, tinnitus, and vertigo.
Benign postural vertigo is characterized by brief severe attacks of vertigo induced by movement, especially turning in bed. The condition is less persistent than vestibular neuronitis, in which severe vertigo persists for days, probably as a result of viral infection of the inner ear or vestibular nerve.
Bulbar nerves
(In this context, the term bulbar refers to the medulla oblongata, which looks like a swelling, or bulb, at the top of the spinal cord.) Damage to the 9th through 12th cranial nerves, the bulbar nerves, causes impairment of swallowing and speech and weakness of the neck muscles. These paralyses often lead to choking and asphyxia due to inhalation of saliva and food and inability to swallow or clear the airway of secretions that may be aspirated into the lungs. A nasal tone to the voice and weakness of coughing are early signs of damage to these nerves. Causes of bulbar palsy include motor neuropathies, such as diphtheria, poliomyelitis, and botulism, motor neuron diseases, myasthenia gravis, certain muscle diseases, and compression of the nerves by tumours.
Brainstem
Brainstem lesions produce a number of syndromes depending on their location and cause. In Moebius syndrome, the abducens and facial nerves, which originate in the brainstem, do not develop. Encephalitis may affect the brainstem only, with consequent damage to cranial nerves, to cerebellar connections, to the long ascending and descending tracts in the pons and medulla oblongata, and to the reticular activating system and short tracts within the brainstem that control the functions of consciousness and coordinate eye movements. Strokes, malignant tumours such as gliomas, and multiple sclerosis also may affect this region. In syringobulbia a cavity forms within the brainstem in association with syringomyelia (see above The spinal cord) that causes cranial nerve palsies and both cerebellar and long-tract symptoms.
Wernicke disease is caused by a thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency and occurs most often in alcoholics; symptoms include ocular palsies, nystagmus, memory disturbance, and peripheral neuropathy. Eye symptoms may be corrected by the administration of thiamine.
Correction of severe sodium depletion may cause edema, or accumulation of fluid, in the central nervous system. Since many motor nerve fibres cross over and intertwine in the pons, the resulting swelling may lead to their compression and dysfunction, as well as to demyelination, a condition known as central pontine myelinolysis. Unconsciousness and spastic paralysis of the limbs are the primary symptoms.