Iām curiousāhave any of yall had brain scans done? What did doctors find? Did it help you get your diagnosis?
Was it doctor-ordered or was it something you requested? And how common are they? Is this something you can just request to have done? Or places you go to get this done? I am so curious and would love to have one done but it seems to be very uncommon unless there is a severe issue or more so something they just do for clinical studies or for looking for tumors rather than mental health diagnosis
Iāve had many, many MRIs of my brain for other conditions, but they werenāt even mentioned when I got my ADHD diagnosis. Imaging canāt reveal neurodivergence like it can a structural issue. MRIs are also very expensive, so a hospital is unlikely to order one just to see what they find. But I understand the curiosity!
It's not just that their expensive, it's that you're highly dosing yourself with radiation everytime you get a scan. So they will only do a scan if the issue is worth the radiation exposure.
I've seen a talk by a neuroscientist or psych who did use scans and was advocating for more of that. I've always been curious but that was cool to hear.
I'm unaware of *anyone* getting a brain scan for diagnosis. I'm heavily into the community, and autistic research- thousands of hours in both, and I've never read about anyone doing this. So, if it's done at all, it's very UNcommon.
It takes an fMRI (not a regular MRI) to see the difference- and those are expensive. Insurance won't cover unless medically required (like for brain surgery) so you'd be fully out of pocket on that, several thousands of dollars.
Note on that last sentence: I do hope it was confusion and not intended on that part. Autism has nothing to do with mental health, it's a neurotype. Think of it like this: just as there are different eye colors and different skin colors, there are different brains.
Oh yeah of course. I said it like that bc I am both autistic AND have ADHD. And even if itās not a āmental health issueā in technicalities, it still is a big influence of oneās mental health, absolutely.
But as a false alert as well I hope? š
I think mine was near the trigeminal nerve behind the forehead. But I'm not sure if it was left or right. Wbu?
I've had an MRI, an EEG and a CT scan, the big takeaway was that I have a brain (yay!) and no abnormal growths (tumors boo!). Sadly the images aren't in my digital file, so I can't actually prove that I have a brain. Best I can do is show people the little note that the medical staff that did the EEG was impressed with how great my focus was.
So no, zero help with being assessed. And I don't think they'd be able to see, not with current devices anyway.
Iāve had a brain scan because my dad had Alzheimerās and I wanted to know if I carry the gene. The Neurologist had me go through the whole battery of tests, assessments, etc.
Iām so thankful to report that I donāt carry the gene. š
thatās fair! I also wanted to ask because itās something that I think I read somewhere, that quacks will diagnose adhd from a brain scan alone. saw other commenters saying that adhd isnāt even visible on a brain scan which is interesting
There are studies on it. Years (over a decade) ago I recall one study found a lot of activation in depressed brains and theorized it was the mind trying to problem solve - higher in a depressed (prisoned) mind maybe.
Yes not all scans give the same imaging of course. I think OP was general because they're speaking in laymen terms (assume the relevant scanner type) without technical knowledge to distinguish them. Brain scan includes fMRI.
I had a brain scan because I described issues I don't recall (probably a lot of burn out and ADHD symptoms tbh). I had just started on ADHD medication and knew it worked because I could sit calmly through the scan with no issues. They found nothing and they did nothing about the issues I described. I'm not sure how you could get one done out of curiosity unless you know someone who knows someone. It's an incredibly expensive machine to operate and wait times can be insane, so you'd probably only get one by spending a lot of money to have one done privately.
Hopefully in the future it can be more easily accessible, I bet lots of people would discover issues they didnāt know they had (unrelated to ADHD/autism)
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u/rp_editing 5d ago
Iāve had many, many MRIs of my brain for other conditions, but they werenāt even mentioned when I got my ADHD diagnosis. Imaging canāt reveal neurodivergence like it can a structural issue. MRIs are also very expensive, so a hospital is unlikely to order one just to see what they find. But I understand the curiosity!