Are brain scans helpful in diagnosing TBI?
In TBI, the structural damage is not as easy to see as it with stroke, because the damage is not all in once place—it’s scattered. But as imaging technology continues to evolve, we’re able to do more. Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is useful to a large extent because it can show damage to many—but not all—of the brain’s structures. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a newer type of MRI, is particularly valuable because it shows damage to nerve fibers, which is an important factor in TBI. Still, the only way an MRI can tell you about an injury’s effect on brain function is if you’ve done studies to correlate certain parts of the brain and certain nerve fiber pathways with certain functions. More research is needed to determine all those correlations, especially when the damage is more subtle or scattered. Conventional MRI, which can show the structure of the brain in high detail, is generally combined with functional MRI (fMRI), which measures blood flow or oxygen use—indica
