How are your brain MRI scan results ?

Hi all,

My brain MRI scan shows nothing special, when I think I have cognitive impairments (I have had untreated severe apnea for years and years)

I wonder how it was with you ?

I ordered an MRI with a patient who had severe OSA diagnosed in his mid 20's . His mother told me she saw him have apneas as a baby. Lo and behold his MRI showed no lacunar infarcts or any damage at all.Thats over 25 years of severe nocturnal desaturations

Mabutu wrote:I ordered an MRI with a patient who had severe OSA diagnosed in his mid 20's . His mother told me she saw him have apneas as a baby. Lo and behold his MRI showed no lacunar infarcts or any damage at all.Thats over 25 years of severe nocturnal desaturations

Maybe you need to catch up on emerging research?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2491498/

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/study ... your-brain

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/sleep ... n-function

I think my MRI scan technique was not advanced enough: Paul M. Macey once said: "Other methodological limitations of the study by O'Donoghue et al. include the poor resolution and signal-to-noise of MRS in the brainstem, so that localized pathology in key brainstem structures could not be ruled out. Finally, individual MRI techniques cannot resolve the nature of the stuctural brain changes".

I will show the raw pictures here.

Well any changes relevant to OSA won't be in the brainstem anyhow, so why are you fussing with that (and how old was the quote?)?

My knowledge about the brain is so low, I'd like to see if the following areas of my brain are fine:

- White matter integrity
- Mammilary body
- Hippocampus
- Insular cortex
- Blood-brain barrier

Serie 1: from one side http://imgur.com/a/4csXi
Serie 2: from top to down http://imgur.com/a/BE2Gv
Serie 3: probably from top to down, pix are blurry http://imgur.com/a/3vZ4i
Serie 4: is it from top to down ? (pix are too darkP http://imgur.com/a/dcVKq
Serie 5: is it also from top to down? http://imgur.com/a/9DTcU
Serie 6: probably from bottom up, bending 45 degree ? http://imgur.com/a/Q5USU
Serie 7: another direction http://imgur.com/a/YvBKi
Serie 8: from front to back http://imgur.com/a/YvBKi
Serie 9: another direction, I don't know which it was http://imgur.com/a/Inqll

Julie wrote:Well any changes relevant to OSA won't be in the brainstem anyhow, so why are you fussing with that (and how old was the quote?)?

The quote was in 2012.

ChicagoGranny wrote:

Mabutu wrote:I ordered an MRI with a patient who had severe OSA diagnosed in his mid 20's . His mother told me she saw him have apneas as a baby. Lo and behold his MRI showed no lacunar infarcts or any damage at all.Thats over 25 years of severe nocturnal desaturations

Maybe you need to catch up on emerging research?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2491498/

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/study ... your-brain

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/sleep ... n-function

Exactly: recent advanced MRI scans can easily detect brain damages.

papzombie wrote:I think I have cognitive impairments

papzombie wrote: I'd like to see if the following areas of my brain are fine: .....

Papzombie, Would it be more important to undergo cognitive testing?

Personally, I won't undergo cognitive testing. I find being a stoop in my old age is quite pleasant.

papzombie wrote:Hi all,

My brain MRI scan shows nothing special, when I think I have cognitive impairments (I have had untreated severe apnea for years and years)

I wonder how it was with you ?

You confuse me, which is it Nothing or Special! Big difference to me. Jim.

A better question how are you going to repair it, brain transplants aren't profected, i'd probably get a defective donor.

If I were you I'd maxumize my XPAP treatment. maybe go on O2 added if needed. Eat nutritious foods, take OTC supplements, keep moving around, active.... Jim

papzombie wrote: My brain MRI scan shows nothing special, when I think I have cognitive impairments (I have had untreated severe apnea for years and years)

You can have all sorts of brain malfunction and it won't show up on the scans - MRI, CT or PET. Even now, 15 years after I had a brain injury, the CT and MRI scans don't show the damage although they know exactly where the damage would be (I had the scans 2 years ago for an unrelated reason). Docs choose not to do a PET scan since they can't do anything about it anyway. So be thankful that the scans don't show Alzheimers or some tumor even if it doesn't show your impairments. So, you have cognitive impairments (which I still have). Your next step is to identify what areas they are in and then determine if there is anything you can do about them OR if there are additional issues involved. Frustrating, but there you are.

Over the years my MRI reports first noted a singular area, later a few small areas, and a few years later several scattered vascular ischemic lesions. The doctor said they weren't enough to account for my symptoms of cognitive impairment and memory loss. Brain damage has been discussed on here a lot over the years. It's a topic of interest because of the symptoms that can accompany OSA. Even when there is nothing identifiable om imaging, the brain can have compromised function. The effect of long term sleep deprivation is real even if not readily visible. In these cases restoring healthy sleep and adequate oxygen levels during sleep is the first step to providing the brain with opportunity to self repair. The degree of repair will vary by individual and over time.

You sure don't sound impaired and never have!

My understanding is that the systemic damage from lack of sleep may not always be of the nature that it would show up on any organ scan. That does not make it less real. And OSA is but one of many causes of impaired sleep.

A scan of an organ is not required to document the importance of life-sustaining processes such as sleep and breathing. Lack of either one can kill you, but the length of time it takes depends on the acute or chronic nature of the suffocation or sleep deprivation.

In my opinion.

ChicagoGranny wrote:

papzombie wrote:I think I have cognitive impairments

papzombie wrote: I'd like to see if the following areas of my brain are fine: .....

Papzombie, Would it be more important to undergo cognitive testing?

Personally, I won't undergo cognitive testing. I find being a stoop in my old age is quite pleasant.

Cognitive testing can be biased: if my IQ was 180, then due to apnea it became 150, still higher than the average, then am I having problems due to apnea or not ?
Of course cognitive skills are not only measured by the ingredients of IQ, but it's similar.