Abstract
Medical advances in intensive care currently allow patients suffering from severe brain lesions to survive. In most cases, this evolution is based on behavioral testing which implies some subjectivity and does not always lead to an accurate diagnosis. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may help to improve the diagnosis of patients with disorders of consciousness and provide prognosis regarding the recovery of patients’ brain functioning. Indeed, spectroscopy and diffusion tensor imaging detect invisible tissue lesions using FLAIR and T2* sequences. These techniques allow a better diagnosis and prognosis of patients with disorders of consciousness (particularly when they are combined) and permit a better detection of the deterioration or recovery of post-traumatic brain functioning by considering the fluctuation of the NAA/Cr and FA values in time. To our mind, in the future these non-invasive techniques will play a determinative role in the monitoring of post-comatose patients.
Keywords
- Traumatic Brain Injury
- Fractional Anisotropy
- Diffusion Tensor Imaging
- Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
- Anisotropic Diffusion
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Tshibanda, JF.L., Demertzi, A., Soddu, A. (2012). Spectroscopy and Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Disorders of Consciousness. In: Schnakers, C., Laureys, S. (eds) Coma and Disorders of Consciousness. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2440-5_5
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