MRI of the head

Injury	Disease	Nutrition	Poison

Symptoms	Surgery	Test	Special Topic

Brain

MRI scans

Lobes of the brain

Overview

Risks

Results

MRI of the head

Alternative Names:

Nuclear magnetic resonance - cranial; Magnetic resonance imaging - cranial; Head MRI scan; MRI - cranial; NMR - cranial; Cranial MRI

What abnormal results mean:

The sensitivity of an MRI depends, in part, on the experience of the radiologist.

An MRI of the head may reveal disorders including:

Primary brain tumors
Metastatic brain tumors
Structural abnormality of the brain, ventricles, pituitary gland
Pituitary masses
Lesions or masses (any location)
Acoustic neuroma
Optic glioma
Arteriovenous malformations of the head
Brain aneurysms
Damage to basal ganglia
Subdural hematoma, blood clots
Intracranial hemorrhage (more than 48 hours old)
Radiation damage to the brain
Brain swelling
Demyelinating diseases
Infarction or other tissue destruction
Brain abscess
Abnormalities of blood flow (such as carotid artery stenosis)

Additional conditions under which the test may be performed:

Acromegaly
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Throat cancer
Chronic subdural hematoma
Cushing's syndrome
Deep intracerebral hemorrhage
Delirium
Dementia
Dementia due to metabolic causes
Diabetes insipidus; central
Hemorrhagic stroke
Huntington's disease
Hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage
Hypopituitarism
Intracerebral hemorrhage
Lobar intracerebral hemorrhage
Melanoma of the eye
Meniere's disease
Multi-infarct dementia
Multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) I
Multiple sclerosis
Normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH)
Partial (focal) seizure
Partial complex seizure
Petit mal seizure
Pituitary Cushing's (Cushing's disease)
Prolactinoma
Reye's syndrome
Senile cerebral amyloid angiopathy
Senile dementia/Alzheimer's type
Acute sinusitis
Chronic sinusitis
Stroke
Stroke secondary to atherosclerosis
Stroke secondary to cardiogenic embolism
Stroke secondary to FMD
Stroke secondary to syphilis
Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome
Toxoplasmosis
Transient ischemic attack (TIA)
Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome
Wilson's disease

Review Date: 11/3/2004
Reviewed By: Jeffrey J. Brown, MD FACR, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.

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