Language
Country/Area
No result found
From Parkinson to Alzheimer: How Bradyphrenia Reveals Mysteries of the Nervous System?
Bradyphrenia is a slowing of thinking common in many neurological disorders. Disorders involving this condition include Parkinson's disease and some forms of schizophrenia, which can lead to delayed reactions and fatigue.
According to research, patients describe or exhibit slowing of thought processes, often accompanied by delayed reactions, severely impaired memory, and poor motor control. The word "bradyphrenia" comes from ancient Greek and means "slow thinking."
Assessment of Parkinson's disease
In one study, Steck found that nearly half of patients with Parkinson's disease developed bradyphrenia during hospitalization after encephalitis. Neuroscientists often view it as an additional feature of Parkinson's disease, and people with Parkinson's disease often have impairments that can be defined by bradyphrenia. In 1966, Wilson et al.'s study found that Bradyphrenia in Parkinson's disease patients led to an increase in their reaction time when retaining information.
However, some researchers point out that not all patients with Parkinson's disease will be affected by bradyphrenia. Some neurologists say that bradyphrenia can exist alone in some cases and does not necessarily accompany Parkinson's disease.
In some cases, bradyphrenia may be mistaken for an inability to accomplish tasks strategically, and is therefore often misclassified. Overall, although there is consensus on the classification of bradyphrenia, this neurological disorder still appears more frequently in case studies of Parkinson's disease.
Impact in Parkinson's disease
Several symptoms of Parkinson's disease are affected by bradyphrenia. Norberg's research found that the process of progressive slowing of thinking affected patients' eating behavior, causing them to take longer than normal to parse what they were eating. Other studies have pointed out that bradyphrenia is one of the causes of slow audio feedback in patients with Parkinson's disease.
Dobbs et al. conducted an experiment in which participants listened to information with headphones and responded with the help of a microphone when they received a task. Studies have shown that Parkinson's patients have significantly delayed response times when completing tasks, and this phenomenon has also been confirmed in older patients.
Parkinson’s disease and depression
Rogers and his team pointed out that Bradyphrenia in Parkinson's disease shows significant similarities to "psychomotor delay". Psychomotor delay is due to major depressive disorder. Researchers compared patients with Parkinson's disease with those with depression and found that the former had significantly longer reaction times.
Ultimately, research shows that bradyphrenia in Parkinson's disease is very similar to the psychomotor delays in major depressive disorder, although there are some differences in the damage to the dopamine system.
Alzheimer’s disease connection
As another neurological disease involving cognitive impairment, patients with Alzheimer's disease also experience slowed thinking. Pate and Margolin's research shows that this is due to damage to cortical centers, especially in older people, and there is evidence of Bradyphrenia in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
The impact of depression
Bradyphrenia has also been seen in depressed patients with neurological damage to the brain. Research by Rogers et al. found that patients with severe depression experienced larger delays in reaction times when taking specific psychological tests, suggesting that their thinking processes were affected.
Different types of depressive states have different effects on bradyphrenia. The degree of slow thinking in non-depressive patients is not enough to define them as bradyphrenia.
Bradyphrenia in Huntington's disease and schizophrenia
Bradyphrenia has also been observed in Huntington's disease and schizophrenia. Research shows that people with Huntington's disease spend significantly more time completing tasks that require cognitive processing. Patients with schizophrenia can also complete the corresponding tasks faster, but Hanes pointed out that this shows that the emergence of bradyphrenia in schizophrenia is not as obvious as in Huntington's disease.
Addiction, Management and Treatment
According to research by Martin et al., bradyphrenia may be a precursor to overdose of heroin and other opiates. Although bradyphrenia is considered one of its most "mild" consequences, the cognitive damage it can cause cannot be ignored.
Currently, there is no drug that can directly improve the thinking speed of patients with bradyphrenia, and treatment options mainly rely on existing treatment strategies for Parkinson's disease. And in some cases, Parkinson's-like drugs have shown potential in treating patients with bradyphrenia.
Although various treatments are available for the management of this symptom, further exploration and research is needed in this area to better understand and respond to this complex neurological state.
The existence of Bradyphrenia not only reveals the complexity of brain health, but also challenges our understanding of thinking and behavior. Does this remind us to rethink the mysteries of the nervous system?
