Sheehan Neuroscience is dedicated to applying the most up-to-date findings in
neuroscience research to clinical settings in order to help with the diagnosis
and treatment of our patients.
In partnership with the nuclear medicine services of Central
Minnesota Heart Hospital, we have offered state-of-the-art SPECT—Single Photon Emitted
Computed Tomography—a safe and validated nuclear-medicine procedure that
evaluates brain function by tracing blood flow in the brain. By
assessing blood flow to different regions of the brain, our clinicians can
determine which parts of the brain are functioning well and also which may be
damaged or impaired. This helps achieve more accurate diagnoses for our
complicated patients, many of whom suffer from traumatic brain injury or
neurodevelopmental disorders.
Note: At present, owing to insufficient reimbursements from insurance and M.A., we are not able to offer imaging services to the general public. We are hoping that this will change in the future. Meanwhile, Sheehan Neuroscience continues to be active in research, education, and outreach activities. Our publications and programs will be featured on the web-site as available, and this site will be regularly updated.
About SPECT.
These patients are often misdiagnosed by clinicians whose
evaluations consist only of questioning in an office or paper and pencil tests,
and may go many years or decades with inaccurate diagnoses and ineffective,
costly, and even harmful treatments. On those occasions when these
patients have had imaging studies done, it is usually MRI or CT, which
can only show structural brain abnormalities such as tumors and scar tissue.
SPECT on the other hand, since it provides information about how the blood flow to the brain, provides information that is directly relevant to how the brain functions. As such,
it is able to:
- Identify
undiagnosed/misdiagnosed conditions, such as Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
-
Simplify complicated cases
-
Provide
more reliable direction for clinicians by taking some of the guesswork out of
treatment
-
Reduce
stigma of mental illness by showing that symptoms are related to the function
of an organ, the brain
- Help
family/friends/clinicians and others understand (one picture is worth a
thousand words!)
Can SPECT help me?
A great deal of information has been gleaned in the past
hundred fifty years about the behaviors controlled by the various parts of the
brain. However, only in the past twenty years or so has it become
possible to visualize the functional activity of the brain in a meaningful
fashion by measuring blood flow and metabolic activity in these regions.
Functional imaging (like SPECT) is based upon the tight
structure-function relationship that exists in the normal brain. At
present, the only readily available functional imaging technique available in
most clinical settings (outside of highly specialized research facilities) is
SPECT.
SPECT is, moreover, the most sensitive diagnostic test for many important
neuropsychiatric conditions, including mild traumatic brain injury. These
conditions are common and often associated with significant symptoms and
disability but they can easily elude skilled clinicians and lead to misdiagnoses
and inappropriate treatments. Not only does SPECT allow clinicians to
better diagnose and more effectively treat complicated patients, it also allows one to visualize the brain’s activity and thus see the physiological
basis of one’s cognitive, emotional, and other difficulties, thereby reducing
the stigma associated with the “mental illness” label and helping you, your
family and friends, and your clinicians better understand and support you.
Functional Brain Imaging (SPECT) may help you if you have suffered from:
-
Brain Trauma
-
Anoxic/Toxic Brain Injury (including Birth Hypoxia)
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Seizures, especially Frontal and Temporal Lobe Seizures
-
Asperger’s/Autism
-
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
-
Stroke
-
Alzheimer’s/other forms of dementia
-
Refractory depression, bipolar, anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive
disorders