The specific symptoms associated with a cerebral injury or abnormality depend upon the areas and extent of damage. A person with damage to the association areas of the frontal lobes may have difficulty concentrating on complex mental tasks, appearing disorganized and easily distracted.

If the general interpretative area of the dominant hemisphere is injured, the person may be unable to interpret sounds as words or to understand ideas presented in writing. However, the dominance of one hemisphere usually does not become established until after five or six years of age. Consequently, if the general interpretative area is destroyed in a child, the corresponding region of the other side of the brain may be able to take over the functions, and the child's language abilities may develop normally. If such an injury occurs in an adult, the nondominant hemisphere may develop only limited interpretative functions, producing a severe intellectual disability. Following are three common cerebral abnormalities.

The last thing the young man recalled before waking up in a hospital room was riding his bike around a sharp curve. Witnesses said that he smashed into a parked car. When he regained consciousness, he found that a gash on his face had been sewn up and his shoulder was dislocated. But the primary reason for keeping him in the hospital was a concussion. He had lost consciousness when slamming into the car jarred his brain. He recovered consciousness just a few minutes after the accident, witnesses reported, but he did not recall anything prior to waking up in the hospital. Gradually, he became more aware but felt mentally fuzzy. He tried to watch television but would forget a statement as soon as it was spoken. For several days he had difficulty concentrating and remembering, and he had a fierce headache. Soon, however, he completely recovered.

Cerebral palsy (CP) is motor impairment at birth, stemming from a brain anomaly occurring early in development. Until recently, most cases of CP were blamed on birth trauma, but recently researchers determined that the most common cause is a blocked cerebral blood vessel, which leads to atrophy of the brain region deprived of its blood supply. Birth trauma and brain infection cause some cases. CP affects about 2 in every 2,000 births and is especially prevalent among premature babies. One-half to two-thirds of affected babies improve and can even outgrow the condition by age 7. Sometimes seizures of learning disabilities are also present. Clinicians classify CP by the number of limbs and the types of neurons affected.

In a stroke or cerebrovascular accident (CVA), a sudden interruption in blood flow in a vessel supplying brain tissues damages the cerebrum. The affected blood vessel may rupture, bleeding into the brain, or be blocked by a clot. In either case, brain tissues downstream from the vascular accident die or permanently lose function. Temporary interruption in cerebral blood flow, perhaps by a clot that quickly breaks apart, produces a much less serious transient ischemic attack (TIA).