Types Of Demyelination

Hypoxic-Ischemic Demyelination

Hypoxic-ischemic demyelination is damage to the nerve myelin sheath caused by a hypoxic-ischemic brain injury. These injuries to the brain occur with respiratory arrest, near-hanging, cardiac arrest, near-drowning, or anything else that causes incomplete suffocation. Hypoxic is a word used to describe a dangerous lack of oxygen, and ischemia is used to describe a damaging decrease in blood supply. The injury causes the brain to have no oxygen supply as a result of reduced blood supply. When the brain has so oxygen because the blood supply is cut off, the brain cells and tissues begin to die off. This can happen to parts of the brain that house white matter. White matter is a term used for the specialized cells that make myelin for the nerve cells. White matter does not regenerate itself so this type of demyelination usually causes irreversible nerve damage. The severity of the symptoms that result in the injury afflicted to the brain is mostly dependent upon how long the brain was without blood flow and oxygen.