Traumatic Brain Injury; Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Diffusion Tensor Imaging is a type of MRI which can provide some objective evidence of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). As you may know, TBI involves the microscopic axons in the brain. With any sort of extreme jarring or trauma, like when you slip and fall and hit your head, or even when there is no hitting of the head, the axons in the brain can shear or tear away. This ordinarily is not seen on an MRI or CT scan.
The extreme jarring or trauma can be a whiplash type of movement of the head. When the head goes back and forth, the brain within the skull moves and can hit the inside of the skull. This is called cous/contracous effect. This is what service men and women experience when there is an explosion close to them and they are shaken up. If they have been shaken enough, they can experince TBI and post traumatic stress disorder. This is common and is a double whammie.
For these reasons, you can suffer from TBI without your head hitting anything, without a loss of consciousness, and without any evidence on an MRI or CT scan.
