A new imaging method may predict risk of post-treatment brain bleeding after a stroke. In a study of stroke patients, investigators confirmed through MRI brain scans that there was an association between the extent of disruption to the brain’s protective blood-brain barrier and the severity of bleeding following invasive stroke therapy. The results of the National Institutes of Health-funded study were published in Neurology.
These findings are part of the Diffusion and Perfusion Imaging Evaluation for Understanding Stroke Evolution (DEFUSE)-2 Study, which was designed to see how MRIs can help determine which patients undergo endovascular therapy following ischemic stroke caused by a clot blocking blood flow to the brain. Endovascular treatment targets the ischemic clot itself, either removing it or breaking it up with a stent.
“The biggest impact of this research is that information from MRI scans routinely collected at a number of research hospitals and stroke centers can inform treating physicians on the risk of bleeding,” said Richard Leigh, M.D., a scientist at NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and an author on the study.
While this study will help greatly the victims of strokes, there are now even more advancements being made in ‘brain mapping’ via an MRI that has the potential to see how a child will perform in school.
What if, when a child starts school, not only would they take a series of behavioral tests, but, also neuroprognosis exams — a series of scans to help predict their learning deficiencies. Based on the results of these assessments, the child could be placed in an appropriate, personalized educational program. Currently, a child’s educational track, i.e., how he/she is educated, doesn’t change unless the child begins to exhibit behavior patterns that don’t fit the normal class room setting. Research is showing more and more that many children simply don’t fit the model of the ‘perfect desk student’.
Speaking to this issue, Dr. John D. E. Gabrieli, lead author and a professor at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, noted how, much too often, our educational system simply waits for children to fail and watches them fall far behind their peers before any kind of individualized support is offered.
“Here we consider how neuroimaging may contribute to helping people in the nearer future,” state the authors upfront, before they begin an examination of the many studies that describe how brain imaging may predict a whole variety of human behaviors — everything from the likelihood of a criminal becoming a repeat offender to an individual teen’s future drug and alcohol use… from an addict’s likelihood of relapse to the future reading performance of an infant baby.
A new review of published brain imaging studies spotlights the many ways our learning, our criminality, our health behaviors, and our response to drugs and other treatments can be predicted by MRIs and other technologies. As the technological advances continue to be made, having the most precise lens crafted into the equipment will give the clearest image possible. Having a lens designed and crafted by UKA delivers clear, distinct images.
Scans of an individual’s brain activity are emerging as powerful predictive tools, thanks to the Human Connectome Project (HCP), an initiative of the National Institutes of Health. Recently reported studies based on HCP neuroimaging and psychological data show that individual differences in brain connectivity can reliably predict a person’s behavior.
Such individual differences were often discarded as “noise” – uninterpretable apart from group data. These scans might someday help clinicians personalize diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, said researchers.
Whether used to look directly at our brains to help with treatment for stroke patients, people suffering from Alzheimers, or adapted for research, brain imaging is here, it’s happening, and it helps.
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