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By now I assume you have checked out the rest of our PathFinder Brain SPECT Imaging web site and you may have already noted this paragraph:   The approach at The Neuroscience Center (TNC) is to integrate the information provided by Brain SPECT in the workup process of refining the differential diagnosis of complex conditions presenting with multiple comorbidities (co-existing conditions) and very often treatment resistance. Examples can be found in combinations of multiple concussions, concurrent or not, with behavioral changes, development illness, substance abuse, learning disability or cognitive impairment and limbic type seizures . Often patients present after having failed treatment attempts for years. Even in these situations experience has shown that among the multiple treatment plans available at TNC, there is one or a combination that ultimately works.   Here I would just like to briefly comment about it because it touches on several key points:  

  • PathFinder Brain SPECT Imaging is an.... [ Read More ]

How We Can Actually See Psychiatric Illness

(based on a press release authored by Dr.Michael Breen at [email protected]; www.DrMichaelBreen.com) Traditionally symptoms are how patients with mental illness are diagnosed and treated. The problem is that this approach hasn’t worked as well as expected. Success rates in treating most psychiatric illness haven’t changed in decades. At The Neuroscience Center in many cases we’ve adopted a new approach. We can now see the unique brain images produced by neuropsychiatric illnesses. What we see is usually the combined functional effect of concurrent disorders as for example various combinations among depression, manic depression, anxiety, chronic pain, traumatic brain injury, toxic exposures, epilepsy, developmental diseases and other conditions. The key to this new approach to mental disorders is a functional brain imaging procedure called Brain SPECT done under the supervision of Dr. Dan Pavel, Director of PathFinder Brain SPECT Imaging, at The Neuroscience Center. Dr. Pavel, a former Professor and former Director of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Illinois, has focused on Brain.... [ Read More ]

Brain SPECT : improved displays for enhanced results .

Dan G Pavel M.D. Director, PathFinder Brain SPECT Imaging, Deerfield IL 60015 As software capabilities develop, work on quantification techniques is certainly justified. Nonetheless it seems imperative not to lose sight of the need to interpret the individual patient’s images. An improved visualization will go a long way towards improving not only the image interpretation, but also the dialog with referring professionals and with patients. In addition it will go a long way towards further spreading the notion of Brain SPECT as a key functional imaging procedure. To this effect the end result displays should be comprehensivedetailed, precise, consistent and.…user friendly. In other words the end displays should become a most efficient and easy to relate to, communication tool. There are several ways to look at a brain SPECT: (A) In a static mode (a) using its native image or (b) using its normalized image e.g. after co-registration to a standard atlas.... [ Read More ]

The value of Brain SPECT functional Imaging in Clinical Psychiatry

Dan G Pavel M.D. Director, PathFinder Brain SPECT Imaging, Deerfield IL 60015.

Functional Brain SPECT perfusion studies provide important information in the evaluation of many psychiatric conditions with comorbidity. Indeed, the presence of comorbidity is a frequent reason for failed treatments. The comorbidity can be induced by a variety of origins including neurodevelopmental problems, traumatic brain injury, neuroinflammation, non-convulsive epilepsy, neurotoxic exposure, nutritional deficiencies, etc, which all contribute to the altering of blood flow levels in various gray matter structures.

A good quality brain SPECT provides detailed information about location, magnitude, and extent of areas of hyper and/or hypoperfusion(s). Such information will, in turn, contribute to the tailoring of a treatment strategy for a specific patient. In other words, brain SPECT (properly done and interpreted) goes a long way towards avoiding the dreaded “trial-and-error” pathway of treatment, by helping the specialist treat the patient and not the symptom.

The following.... [ Read More ]