Question

While boogie boarding, a woman did a "face plant" in the sand, scraping the skin from her face, and causing bleeding in both eyes. While her face healed, she was left with jaw pain, visual problems, mental confusion, memory loss, and personality changes. Explain what brain regions and/or cranial nerves might have been affected for each symptom caused by the accident.

Answer 1

The mentioned symptoms exhibited by the woman in the given question show that damage has occurred in the occipital and the frontal lobe, which is, primarily in the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex is the place where memory processing takes place. Thus, any kind of damage to the mentioned parts of the brain will eventually result in personality changes, loss in memory, and mental confusion.

In the given case, the cranial nerves getting affected will be the one taking part in the visual activity, that is, optic nerves and oculomotor nerves. Damage to these cranial nerves would have resulted in the visual conditions as mentioned in the given case.