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Diffusion tensor imaging with MR may help predict concussion outcomes
Method shows white matter abnormalities in patients Courtesy: American Journal of Neuroradiology
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), an advanced form of MR which helps a physician visualize a brain’s white matter, can be used to detect whether a concussed patient will ever fully recover, research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System has shown.
With DTI, the researchers are able to see the movement of water molecules in the brain which, in turn, helps them measure the “uniformity” of the movement, called fractional anisotropy (FA). And according to the announcement, having a low-FA brain region means that the area has been damaged.
In the study, the researchers discovered that the areas of the brain that had high FA correlated to a patient having a better outcome during the follow up.
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Dr. Michael L. Lipton, Ph.D., study leader, professor of radiology, psychiatry, behavioral sciences, and neuroscience, and associate director of the Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center, and his team used DTI to scan 39 patients who were diagnosed with minor traumatic brain injury by a physician, as well as 40 healthy participants.
The researchers examined both groups of DTI images to determine where the concussed patient’s brain was considered “abnormal” when compared to the control group. The patients were also assessed on cognitive function, post-concussion symptoms and quality of life, and a year later, 26 of these patients came back for a follow up.
In the following video, Lipton discusses the research that his team conducted. He said, “One of the things that people don’t have a good understanding of is that in this common injury where most people will get better, there is a minority who are going to have persistent symptoms.”
According to Lipton, being able to predict which patients have a good or bad prognosis has tremendous implications for discovering and evaluating treatments for concussions. It also allows researchers to test potential therapies on those concussion patients who can truly benefit from them.
More research is needed to validate the study, and while the team was able to predict the outcomes for the patients in their study, more refined approaches will be needed for “widely differing individuals," said Lipton.
