PET Scan: Understanding Brain Function and Diagnosing Memory Disorders

Positron emission tomography or PET uses sophisticated computer analysis to provide accurate images of the brain. Unlike MRI or CT images, a PET scan provides a detailed image of one's brain function instead of its structure. PET works by injecting radioactive variants of molecules like glucose, oxygen, neurotransmitters, and hormones in the bloodstream to be carried throughout the body. A PET scanner then detects these radioactive molecules that emit radiation, allowing for the study of its uptake and distribution in the brain. In a PET image, the patches where accumulated radiation is highest (active) is typically red and lowest (decreased activity) is usually colored blue.

PET Imaging Used for Diagnosing Memory Disorders

While MRI and CT can give detailed images of the brain's structure, PET imaging are better at detecting functional abnormalities in the brain. Specialists say that it's even possible to detect these abnormalities very early in the course of the disease and before any anatomical changes occur. The decrease or increase in glucose metabolism at a cellular level are said to be the results of disorders that start with functional abnormalities.

Using MRI in Detecting and Assessing Slowly Progressing Conditions

Because of how it progresses, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy or FSHD is among several disorders that are difficult to detect using current testing methods. This is likely due to the fact that severity, age of onset, and progression of this hereditary muscular disorder vary greatly. Some might notice symptoms in their teens, but studies show muscle weakness can start at infancy. Other people, on the other hand, only have mild FSHD that they don't notice its symptoms at all and are only diagnosed after a more affected family member has been diagnosed with FSHD.

People experience various symptoms depending on how mild or strong the disease is. Symptoms range from abdominal muscle weakness, mild hearing loss and abnormalities of the retina to facial weakness, hip weakness and shoulder weakness, among a host of other symptoms.