Tramatic Brain Injury

Detecting the Invisible

With cutting-edge 3T MRI brain mapping technology featuring DTI, SWI, and ASL sequences, we deliver exceptional precision in detecting and visualizing traumatic brain injuries, ensuring clear insights for accurate diagnosis and optimal treatment.

Brain Mapping

Our 3T MRI uses proprietary sequences including Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL), and Susceptibility Weighted Imaging (SWI) to reveal detailed insights that standard MRIs cannot.

Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI): DTI is more effective at visualizing white matter tracts and detecting microstructural brain injury. A 3T MRI provides clearer, more precise DTI scans, allowing for better identification of even subtle brain injuries like diffuse axonal injury (DAI). In contrast, 1.5T MRIs may have limited sensitivity for these types of injuries.
Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL): ASL assesses cerebral blood flow, which can be impaired in traumatic brain injury. The 3T MRI's stronger field results in more accurate, higher-resolution ASL images, providing better insight into areas of reduced blood flow that might suggest cerebral ischemia or dysfunction due to TBI. This level of sensitivity is less pronounced in 1.5T MRIs.
Susceptibility Weighted Imaging (SWI): SWI is highly sensitive to microbleeds, hemorrhages, and iron deposition in the brain—common consequences of TBI. With a 3T MRI, SWI images are of superior quality, making it easier to identify subtle injuries that might not show up on a 1.5T MRI, providing strong evidence for the existence of brain injury.
Connectivity Mapping: Our MRI software utilizes Fibrotrak, which enhances MRI brain mapping by offering advanced post-processing capabilities to visualize and analyze the brain’s white matter tracts and connectivity. By working with data from MRI sequences like DTI, Fibrotrak allows for detailed assessments of the brain's structural integrity and functional connectivity, helping in the diagnosis, treatment planning, and monitoring of neurological conditions such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and neurodegenerative diseases.

In summary, MRI brain mapping is a comprehensive approach that not only provides high-resolution structural images of the brain but also offers insights into its function and connectivity, which is essential for understanding complex neurological conditions, brain injuries, and disorders.

At Pacific West Diagnostic Imaging, our scans are read by a team of radiologists each with over 20 years of med-legal experience, and we provide reports and are available to provide expert testimonials. With the power of a 3T MRI our radiologists can detect:

Severity of Injury in a higher resolution and with greater detail defining subtle injuries, such as microbleeds, white matter disruptions, or small structural abnormalities caused by TBI
Small Lesions that may go undetected by a 1.5T MRI. Because of the higher magnetic field strength, a 3T MRI is better equipped to detect small brain lesions, such as tiny microhemorrhages or diffuse axonal injury (DAI)
Pre-existing Conditions: Imaging can show pre-existing damage or highlight how the injury has worsened since the incident.
Long-Term Prognosis: Since TBIs can have lasting effects, advanced imaging can help demonstrate how the injury is likely to affect the client long-term, which is crucial in securing adequate compensation for future medical care, lost wages, and diminished quality of life.

NEVER MISS AN INJURY

Higher spatial resolution than 1.5 Tesla MRI - the accurate herniated disc volume measurement, clear identification of Whiplash injuries, and clear view of the sciatic nerve

Higher spatial resolution than a 0.5 Tesla MRI (Open MRI)

Faster scan time than 1.5 Tesla and 4 x faster than 0.5 Tesla MRI

For most Personal Injury cases, the most common type of MRI scanners in use in the United States today are the 1.5 Tesla scanner and the 0.3 to 0.5T open MRI scanners. However, in recent years, 3 Tesla scanners have become available in many major metropolitan hospitals, and top 10% imaging centers nationwide.

The greater the Tesla value,

the higher the magnetic field strength of the machine.

TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY (TBI)

AND DIFFUSION TENSOR IMAGING (DTI)

FOR PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEYS

$17 Billion

annual cost to society

3 Million

Cases of TBI every year in the USA

Top 3 Causes of TBI - Fall, hit in head, MVA
Results? MILD AND MODERATE TBI routinely missed
Clinical Diagnoses of TBI are often deemed "Subjective"
Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) is the only way to Objectively Characterize TBI and has withstood numerous Daubert and Frye challenges
Modern Medicine can now characterize mild to moderate TBI that previously went unidentified
TBI Symptoms often delayed, subtle, and missed
Standard CTs and MRIs are often reported as "normal" or "NEGATIVE"
Pacific West Diagnostic Imaging is a leader in DTI imaging and expert witness work

Quantitative Volumetric Imaging

Using MRI scans and sophisticated software tools for quantitative imaging to analyze the resulting images has become a significant element in the assessment of patients with TBI. Volumetric MRI studies performed after a brain injury can provide physicians with regional and whole brain volumes, which can be followed over time. This is especially meaningful, as global and regional brain atrophy from a single minor brain injury or concussion, can be detected one year after the injury.

Figure 9. A graphical representation of a postulated cognitive reserve and how head injury may increase the risk of cognitive decline. The broken green line (1) represents the “normal” situation. There is loss of cognitive function with aging until a threshold point is crossed (broken red line) resulting clinically in dementia. After an episode of traumatic brain injury there is a significant decline in cognitive function which recovers, the degree of recovery being dependent on the severity of the head injury. Recovery is, however, not complete resulting in a loss of functional reserve. After this point cognitive decline may be as for normal ageing [broken blue line (2)] with the dementia threshold being crossed earlier due to loss of functional reserve, or there may be a continued synergistic effect of mechanisms initiated by the head injury which accelerates cognitive decline [broken purple line (3)]. Reproduced with permission from John Wiley and Sons and Smith (2013).

A Different Approach, Using a New Methods of MRI Imaging