Neuropathological Conditions and Clinical Presentations Flashcards

Which feature of the neuropsychological profile most clearly distinguishes schizophrenia from major depressive disorder with cognitive complaints?

Answer: Stable, trait-like deficits across multiple domains in schizophrenia versus state-dependent deficits that improve with remission in depression

Schizophrenia is associated with stable, enduring cognitive deficits present even during symptom remission, whereas depressive cognitive impairment is largely state-dependent and improves with successful treatment.

A child treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) with prophylactic cranial radiation is at greatest risk for late neuropsychological deficits in which domain?

Answer: Processing speed, attention, and working memory

Cranial radiation damages developing white matter, with processing speed, attention, and working memory being the most consistently impaired domains in ALL survivors.

A patient with a frontal lobe glioblastoma multiforme presents with personality changes, disinhibition, and poor insight. Which neuropsychological domain is most likely to show the greatest deficit?

Answer: Executive function and behavioral regulation

Frontal lobe glioblastoma directly disrupts prefrontal cortex and associated circuits, producing the most pronounced deficits in executive function, self-regulation, and behavioral inhibition.

Neuropsychological evaluation of a patient with HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND) most commonly reveals deficits consistent with which pattern?

Answer: Subcortical profile with slowed processing speed, attention deficits, and psychomotor slowing

HAND produces a subcortical cognitive profile reflecting the virus's predilection for basal ganglia and white matter, resulting in slowed processing, attentional dysfunction, and psychomotor impairment.

On neuropsychological testing, which finding most specifically supports a diagnosis of ADHD rather than a primary mood or anxiety disorder?

Answer: Impaired sustained attention and response inhibition with intact episodic memory encoding

ADHD is characterized by specific deficits in sustained attention, response inhibition, and working memory while episodic memory and overall intellectual ability are typically preserved.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) most consistently and prominently impairs which neuropsychological domain, particularly in the early stages of the disease?

Answer: Processing speed and information processing efficiency

MS preferentially disrupts white matter myelin, and processing speed is the most sensitive early cognitive marker, reflecting widespread disruption of neural transmission efficiency.

A patient with a right parietal lobe lesion consistently fails to report or respond to stimuli in left hemispace despite intact primary visual and somatosensory systems. This presentation is most consistent with:

Answer: Hemispatial neglect

Hemispatial neglect is a disorder of spatial attention in which patients fail to attend to contralesional space despite intact primary sensory systems, most commonly following right parietal lesions.