Chemoreceptor Trigger Zone - Damage To The CTZ

Damage To The CTZ

Damage to the CTZ can either benefit or severely hurt someone. Damage can come via stroke, physical injury, or over-excitation resulting in neuron death. Once the damage has occurred, the effects can cause the emetic response to dissapear, or cause the emetic response to heighten, in some cases causing intractable vomiting that leave patients in severe distress. In cases such as these, if the damage is severe enough, little can be done to inhibit an intractable vomiting response because the chemoreceptors in the CTZ are physically damaged or hindered in some way. Recently, it has been discovered that physical changes in the area postrema and CTZ do in fact cause emesis or inhibit it. Specifically, compression of blood vessels which are physically located near in or around the CTZ, and that result in physical compression of the area postrema as a whole, have been found to be the cause of chronic medically intractable emesis and weight loss. Surgical microvascular decompression resulted in postoperative and long-term resolution of emesis.