San Francisco Personal Injury Attorney Discusses Brain Injury ...

As reported by NPR (6/4/12), functional MRI scans and PET scans are helping researchers better understand how the brain works and help people with autism and related disorders.

But this same technology, and what doctors are learning about the brain form other studies, may benefit patients who have suffered a traumatic brain injury.

The technology known as functional MRIs (FMRIs) allows doctors to see inside the brain as it works. Brain cells communicate back and forth with one another via a systems of nerve fibers known as axons.

Groups of axons form the white matter in the brain, which exists in strands throughout the brain. It?s like having fiber cable highways in the brain that form millions of connections. FMRIs allow doctors to track these connections. This is known as ?high-definition fiber tracking.?

And because this can be done while someone is actually using a particular portion of the brain, doctors can determine what parts of the brain are damaged from a traumatic brain injury or due to repeated concussions or mild traumatic brain injuries.

Patients are placed in a MRI tube and asked to perform certain tasks ? like recognizing a face, or reading, or solving a problem. The FMRI allows the doctors to see what areas of the brain are functioning as they should and which are not functioning properly.

And this in turn allows health care providers to better diagnose and treat brain injury patients by developing custom therapies and procedures.

Of course, doctors caution that simply finding an abnormality does not alone prove that it is responsible for a symptom.

You can read more about the use of FMRIs and new brain injury research by clicking here.

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