White matter lesions are among the most common incidental findings—which means the lesions have no clinical significance—on brain scans of people of any age. They may also reflect a mixture of inflammation, swelling, and damage to the myelin.
When your white matter becomes damaged, it causes white matter lesions, which healthcare providers can “see” as bright spots on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of your brain. Some white matter lesions may not cause noticeable symptoms and can be considered almost “normal” with aging.
Bright spots on an MRI can develop due to conditions other than MS – including stroke, head trauma, migraine headache, or Vitamin B12 deficiency. Certain infections, or other autoimmune diseases such as lupus or sarcoidosis, are associated with increased lesions in the brain.
Calcifications within a tumor are white on CT (Figure 3) and usually a signal void (black) on MRI. These may represent residual normal bone or tumor matrix. Calcified tumor matrix suggests a bone- or cartilage-forming tumor, such as a chondrosarcoma.
A malignant tumor's edges are often spiculated, which means that the surface of the tumor is spiky or has sharp-edged “fingers.” These sharp edges create an irregularly-shaped mass that invades nearby tissues.
Malignant and Benign Tumors on MRI Scan
This intensity is often followed by a 'wash-out' (the lesion becomes less bright) of contrast on images which appear in the minutes that follow. Benign lesions, on the other hand, tend to exhibit a slow, progressive rise in intensity of the signal with no wash-out of contrast.
The contrast that goes into your vein for the MRI seeps out of leaky blood vessels in the brain where there is active inflammation. The spots (called lesions) on the scan are areas of active inflammation. Generally, the lesions remain bright for only 1-2 months.
Cerebral white matter lesions (WML) in elderly people are thought to result from small-vessel disease and are considered to be a risk factor for dementia.
Pathological processes, such as demyelination or inflammation, often increase water content in tissues, which decreases the signal on T1; white matter disease often shows up as darker areas in the lighter gray-colored white matter.
Sometimes MRI reports describe lesions as hyperintense, hypointense, or isointense. Hyperintense lesions are bright or white. In general, MS lesions are hyperintense or bright on T2 or FLAIR sequences. Hypointense lesions are dark or black.
White matter dynamically changes in response to learning, stress, and social experiences. Several lines of evidence have reported white matter dysfunction in psychiatric conditions, including depression, stress- and anxiety-related disorders.
What Causes White Matter Hyperintensities? White spots on your MRI can show up even if you have no symptoms of illness. MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, reveals these spots with greater intensity because they have increased water content compared to normal, higher fat content, myelinated tissue in the brain.
Similar to CT scans, MRIs can show whether areas of the brain have atrophied (shrunk). Repeat scans can show how a person's brain changes over time. Evidence of shrinkage may support a diagnosis of Alzheimer's or another neurodegenerative dementia but cannot indicate a specific diagnosis.
Annular tears are seen on MRI scans of the lumbar spine. They appear as tiny white dots in the back of the disk.
“They aren't doctors, and while they do know how to get around your anatomy, they aren't qualified to diagnose you.” That is true even though the tech likely knows the answer to your question. Imaging techs administer thousands of scans a year.
MRI is an imaging method that is very sensitive in detecting inflammation and also bone erosions. This makes MRI an interesting tool to measure the course of the disease in randomised clinical trials and this suggests that MRI may also be useful in the diagnostic process.
MRIs show common structural abnormalities among patients with depression and anxiety. Magnetic resonance images have shown a common pattern of structural abnormalities in the brains of people with major depression disorder (MDD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD), according to a study to be presented at RSNA 2017.
Using MRI, doctors can sometimes tell if a tumor is or isn't cancer. MRI can also be used to look for signs that cancer may have metastasized (spread) from where it started to another part of the body. MRI images can also help doctors plan treatment such as surgery or radiation therapy.
Imaging is used not only for local staging but also to differentiate between benign and malignant lesions. MRI is the preferred imaging modality for the evaluation of soft-tissue masses in clinical practice.
Can a Radiologist See Breast Cancer from a Mammogram, Ultrasound, or MRI? While breast imaging techniques can find suspicious areas in your breast that may be cancer, they can't tell for sure if cancer is present. A breast biopsy is needed to confirm a diagnosis of cancer.
Migraines and the Brain
Multiple studies have found that people with migraines have an increased risk of brain lesions. The two main types of lesions found in migraineurs include: White matter hyperintensities (WMH): These lesions appear bright white on certain sequences of MRI scans.
We postulate that white matter lesions may induce dizziness either because patients perceive a degree of objective unsteadiness or by a cortical–subcortical disconnection syndrome, secondary to disruption of white matter tracts involved in gait and balance control [16], [17].