Introduction to Symptoms of Brain, Spinal Cord, and Nerve Disorders

ByMark Freedman, MD, MSc, University of Ottawa

Reviewed/Revised Oct 2023

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Disorders that affect the brain, spinal cord, and nerves are called neurologic disorders.

Neurologic symptoms—symptoms caused by a disorder that affects part or all of the nervous system—can vary greatly because the nervous system controls so many different body functions. Symptoms can include all forms of pain, including headache and back pain. Muscles, skin sensation, the special senses (vision, taste, smell, and hearing), and other senses depend on nerves to function normally. Thus, neurologic symptoms can include muscle weakness or lack of coordination, abnormal sensations in the skin, and disturbances of vision, taste, smell, and hearing.

Neurologic disorders can interfere with sleep, making a person anxious or excited at bedtime and thus tired and sleepy during the day.

Neurologic symptoms may be minor (such as a foot that has fallen asleep) or life threatening (such as coma due to stroke).

What Is a Neurologic Symptom?

The following are some relatively common neurologic symptoms:

Pain

Back pain
Neck pain
Headache
Pain along a nerve pathway (as in sciatica or shingles)

Muscle malfunction

Weakness
Tremor (rhythmic shaking of a body part)
Paralysis
Involuntary (unintended) movements (such as tics)
Abnormalities in walking
Clumsiness or poor coordination
Muscle spasms
Rigidity, stiffness, and spasticity (muscle spasms resulting from muscle stiffness)
Slowed movements

Changes in sensation

Numbness of the skin
Tingling or a pins-and-needles sensation
Increased sensitivity (hypersensitivity) to light touch
Loss of sensation for touch, cold, heat, or pain
Loss of position sense (knowing where parts of the body are in space)

Changes in the special senses

Disturbances of smell and taste
Visual hallucinations
Partial or complete loss of vision
Double vision
Deafness
Ringing or other sounds originating in the ears (tinnitus)

Other symptoms

Vertigo
Loss of balance
Difficulty swallowing
Slurred speech (dysarthria)

Sleep problems

Difficulty falling or staying asleep
Uncontrollable leg movements during sleep
Falling asleep uncontrollably (as in narcolepsy) or sleeping too much

Changes in consciousness

Fainting
Confusion or delirium
Seizures (ranging from brief lapses in consciousness to severe muscle contractions and jerking throughout the body)
Coma
Stupor

Changes in cognition (mental ability)

Difficulty understanding language or using language to speak or write (aphasia)
Poor memory
Difficulty with common motor skills, such as striking a match or combing hair, despite normal strength (apraxia)
Inability to recognize familiar objects (agnosia) or familiar faces (prosopagnosia)
Inability to sustain concentration when doing a task
Inability to distinguish right from left
Inability to do simple arithmetic (acalculia)
Difficulty understanding spatial relationships (for example, being unable to draw a clock or becoming lost driving in a familiar neighborhood)
Dementia (dysfunction of several cognitive functions)
Neglect of one side of the body or denial that it exists (often due to a brain injury)

The characteristics and pattern of symptoms help doctors diagnose the neurologic disorder. Doctors also do a neurologic examination, which can detect disorders of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves in other parts of the body (peripheral nerves).

Peripheral nerves include

The nerves that connect the head, face, eyes, nose, ears, and their muscles to the brain (cranial nerves)
The nerves that connect the spinal cord to the rest of the body: 31 pairs of spinal nerves
Nerves that run throughout the body

Some peripheral nerves (sensory nerves) carry sensory information (about such things as pain, temperature, vibration, smells, and sounds) to the spinal cord and then to the brain. Others (motor nerves) carry impulses that control muscle movement from the brain through the spinal cord to the muscles. Still others (called the autonomic nerves) carry information about the body and external environment to the internal organs, such as the blood vessels, stomach, intestine, liver, kidneys, and bladder. In response to this information, autonomic nerves stimulate or inhibit the organs they supply. These nerves work automatically (autonomously), without a person’s conscious effort.

If motor nerves are damaged, muscles may weaken or become paralyzed. If sensory nerves are damaged, abnormal sensations may be felt or sensation, sight, or another sense may be impaired or lost. If autonomic nerves are damaged, the organ they regulate may malfunction. For example, blood pressure may not increase as it normally does when a person stands, and the person may feel light-headed.

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