Authors: Silvia Marino Rosella Ciurleo Placido Bramanti Antonio Federico Nicola De Stefano
Publish Date: 2010/08/25
Volume: 14, Issue: 1, Pages: 127-133
Abstract
Traumatic brain injury TBI is a common cause of neurological damage and disability Conventional imaging CT scan or MRI is highly sensitive in detecting lesions and provides important clinical information regarding the need for acute intervention However abnormalities detected by CT scan or conventional MRI have limited importance in the classification of the degree of clinical severity and in predicting patients’ outcome This can be explained by the widespread microscopic tissue damage occurring after trauma which is not observable with the conventional structural imaging methods Advances in neuroimaging over the past two decades have greatly helped in the clinical care and management of patients with TBI The advent of newer and more sensitive imaging techniques is now being used to better characterize the nature and evolution of injury and the underlying mechanisms that lead to progressive neurodegeneration recovery or subsequent plasticity This review will describe the role of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic MRS an advanced MRI technique as related to its use in TBI Proton MRS is a noninvasive approach that acquires metabolite information reflecting neuronal integrity and function from multiple brain regions and allows to assess clinical severity and to predict disease outcome
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