MRI helped pinpoint region of brain injury in patients with concussions

Using MRI researchers were able to locate regional white matter damage in the brains of people who experienced chronic dizziness and other symptoms after they sustained a concussion.

Identifying regional white matter damage and related information from an MRI can help speed the onset of effective treatments for patients with a concussion, according to a press release from the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

The study appeared in the journal Radiology, which is published by the RSNA. Lea Alhilali, MD, at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and colleagues retrospectively reviewed imaging data for 30 patients with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and vestibular symptoms and 25 patients with ocular convergence insufficiency, a condition that occurs when the eyes do not turn inward properly when focused on a nearby object. As controls, they included 39 patients with mTBI without vestibular symptoms and 17 patients with normal ocular convergence.

The researchers acquired imaging data with an MRI technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which produces a fractional anisotropy (FA) value that can be used to determine damage to the brain’s signal-transmitting white matter, according to the press release.

“FA provides a measure of how intact the white matter is,” Alhilali stated in the release. “The lower the FA value, the more injured the white matter is."

Alhilali and colleagues found decreased FA values in the brain regions they looked at in the patients with concussion and vestibular symptoms and these findings appear to show a connection between vestibulopathy and regional brain damage, Alhilali noted in the press release.

“Vestibular therapy is often very effective,” she stated. “Using DTI findings, we can treat patients earlier and get them back to a baseline state much sooner.”