how to learn to localise lesions?

[deleted59964]

Hi all, I'm a med student - just hoping some of you might tell me how to go about learning to localise lesions. I am sick of being clueless about this - my neuroanatomy is not great which doesnt help - but if you guys could recommend some resources that'd be great!

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[neurologist]

Alas, neuroanatomy is kind of the basis of localization, and it's not necessarily a simple task to learn it. Keep trying!

If you want a good med-student level book that helps to start to tie together the clinical side and the basic neuroanatomy, check out "Case Studies in Neuroscience" by Jozefowicz & Holloway.

Also, Manter & Gatz "Essentials of Clinical Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology" is worth looking at if you haven't already.

Both are small and relatively inexpensive paperbacks.

 

[deleted59964]

Alas, neuroanatomy is kind of the basis of localization
...
check out

"Case Studies in Neuroscience" by Jozefowicz & Holloway.

Manter & Gatz "Essentials of Clinical Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology" is worth looking at if you haven't already.

I figured as much
thanks for the tips, I'll definitely check them out

 

[buckley]

The 1st chapter of Neurology Secrets was great for me as a med stud! Try to keep it simple first, like is it peripheral nerve, spinal cord, brain stem, or cerebral hemisphere. Then when you choose one, you go deeper. i.e. if it's brainstem, is it medullary, pontine...then you see if it's medial or lateral, blah blah blah...as you go along, certain "rules" stick in your head and it becomes more natural to just think of the localization just like that, but it IS difficult, so don't let yourself down too much. One of the worthiest advice I got in med school was that I wan't expected to know everything, but to know where to look for the answers. Good luck!

 

[neurodoc]

Localizing neuro lesions requires: 1) knowledge of functional neuroanatomy; 2) visuospatial imagination (i.e., you need to be able to read maps/circuit diagrams); and, 3) the ability to OBSERVE the neurological function (and malfunction) of your patient.
#1 you can learn. #2 is perhaps learnable, but I think it is more inate. If you are the kind of person who just can't read maps and gets lost going from A to B, you may have problems with neurodiagnosis...
#3 can be learned, or at least improved with training, during med school and residency. Goethe said Mann sieht wass man weiss, which translates to "you see what you know."

 

[Lunabin]

I've actually used The Human Brain Coloring Book (Paperback)
by Marian C. Diamond, Arnold B. Scheibel - - surprisingly in depth and is useful if you're a visual-learner.

My neuroanatomy text - Neuroanatomy through Clinical Cases, by Blumenfeld - was also very good.

 

[magicdoc]

check out studentbrain.com. that's a good website with info to help you out.

 

[drivesmecraazee]

Hi, Im an MSII in Costa Rica, at my school neurology seems like a big thing, the uviversity actually cares a lot about it, wich is why we have to take two semesters of anatomy (Im finishing my secod, thank god) and the second semester is a 1/3 neuroanatomy, probably more, anyways, we use Snell's Clinical Neuroanatomy, Im not sure if that's the name in english cuz we use it in spanish, but it's a very good book, it has physiology too and examples of clinical cases as well, you might want to check it out.
Sorry if my english isn't that good, I haven't practice much lately.