Inside the brain with June’s Physiopedia neuroscience review

June proved to be a fascinating month for Physiopedia as our dedicated volunteer team selected neuroscience as their Topic of the Month, undertaking a review of pages covering memory processes, cognitive assessment and neurological function. 

Each month, our Physiopedia volunteers choose a topic to focus on – to review and update existing Physiopedia pages and create new pages for relevant topics. For June, the spotlight was on Neurology, and several interesting topics came up this month. Grab a cup of tea and get your neuroscience education fix here!

Starting with the human brain’s capacity for memory and cognition, the team updated the Physiopedia memory page. Memory difficulties are prominent in neurological conditions, with progressive conditions like Alzheimer’s disease typically beginning with episodic memory decline, while vascular dementia presents particular challenges with attention and planning. Mental health conditions create their own patterns, with depression affecting working memory and PTSD causing intrusive flashbacks alongside recall difficulties for unrelated events.

Memory shapes our experiences and forms the foundation of our identity.

The brain encodes, stores and retrieves information through key structures including the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus and cingulate gyrus. Memory operates through three distinct categories: sensory memory providing brief, high-accuracy storage; working memory actively manipulating information for cognitive tasks; and long-term memory dividing into explicit memories of personal experiences and general knowledge, plus implicit memories of unconscious skills and habits. The interesting topic of false memories is also covered, challenging the misconception that memory functions like a camera. Research demonstrates memory resembles a collage of assembled information, sometimes including mistakes or added details. This fragility means people can develop confident false memories, making understanding of memory processes crucial for rehabilitation professionals.

Complementing the page on memory, the updated Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) page provides clearer guidance on this ten-minute screening tool evaluating visuospatial skills, attention, language, abstract reasoning, delayed recall, executive function and orientation. With excellent sensitivity (90%) and good specificity (87%) for detecting mild cognitive impairment, the MoCA demonstrates versatility across diverse populations from stroke survivors to those with Parkinson’s disease, multiple system atrophy and even chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

In other neurology updates this month, several foundational topics have been covered. Don’t miss the Introduction to Neuroanatomy page, covering nervous system building blocks from neurons and glial cells to complex networks facilitating thinking, memory, and motor function. The updated content emphasises neuroplasticity as the system’s ability to reorganise structure and connections, underlying therapeutic intervention rationale across neurological conditions.

Muscle tone is the residual tension in the relaxed muscle and the most widely used definition of muscle tone is the resistance to passive movements or stretching.

The new Physiopedia page on muscle tone will help you to get your head around this key concept in neurology. This fundamental concept depends on both non-neural factors like viscoelastic properties and neural factors involving centrally controlled regulation. Understanding tone classification is essential for neurology, where both hyper and hypo tonia may be key clinical features. Hypertonia presents in three forms: spasticity with characteristic “catch” phenomenon from corticoreticulospinal tract damage; rigidity creating uniform resistance regardless of velocity; and dystonia involving sustained contractions and abnormal postures. Hypotonia, characterised by poor muscle tone, can progress to flaccidity where muscles offer no resistance to passive movement.

And that’s it for this month! Have you seen a Neurology page that’s missing? Or found new evidence that should be included on a Physiopedia page? Physiopedia is a community resource and we’d love you to get involved to keep this site current. Either get yourself an editing account or contact us if you have ideas for content updates. Help us to keep these comprehensive resources up to date for the rehabilitation community all over the world.