Does anybody Know where I can get a Brain Scan?

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I have decided that I need a brain scan..........I don't know what Is wrong with me, and I am tired of living my life struggling endlessly.

IF there is even a REMOTE chance that having brain scan w/ a qualified opinion that I can start taking steps in the right direction to understand myself make progress, then it is worth it.

How would I go about finding a place/hospital/clinic that does this? I live in the Bay area Central Coast CA and I am willing to commute more than a few hours drive to find a place.

I cant do SPECT, because It is too expensive I have already looked into it.

I have alot of issues right now, I feel severely depressed and terrible anxiety, I am just not functioning anywhere where I want to be. Whether or not the scan can say if I have some form of Autism or not, I will take the chance if there is even a chance that an expert can help me. I really need f*****g help right now. My parents dont have a clue, and I don't trust any psycologist to make an "assessment".

Does anybody know where I can? Who does the test? Please!

I know that people are doing research into whether or now brain scans can be used as a diagnostic tool, but I think it's still in the research stage. You might check out some of the Neurology departments at the Universities or medical centers (e.g. SFSU, Stanford,etc.) in your area. There might be some clinical trials where they are doing scans. Good luck.

Be careful, it is impossible currently to diagnose many conditions of the mind using brain scans.

Also some types of scanning involve large radiation doses, I think that the CAT scan is the worst in this regard. For human radiation exposure you should only do it when the benifit outweighs the risk. Some irresponsible doctors are trying to market full body CAT scans to the healthy, I think it is a waste of money and way too much X-ray exposure.

It depends on what kind of scan you want? MRI? You might be able to get one if you pay out of pocket. Would your insurance cover it? If so, go to your PCP and tell him you want to have a brain scan done and wish to be referred to a specialist. He will probably start asking a bunch of questions, so be prepared for that.
If you want to pay out of pocket, you might just look in the yellow pages under "MRI scans" or "brain scans" and call one of those places, though, they might require that you have a doctor to send the results to.

anything short of a SPECT scan is of limited utility- but do google dr. daniel amen, MD - he published a book with the results of several thousand SPECT scans divided into categories which the reader can adjudicate for him or herself as to which one applies to him/herself.

they have loads of them here:-BRAIN SCAN

My favourite is on the fourth row.

I'm getting an fMRI done as part of a study at the university soon.

The only conditions a SPECT can accurately diagnose in the brain are certain kinds of epilepsy and possibly a few other very solidly organic conditions. Amen is an irresponsible person who fleeces people of their money on the presumption that he can diagnose complex neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions using only a SPECT scan. Use your head about this -- if SPECT scans did all he says they do, they would be a mainstay of normal diagnostics for these conditions. But they are not. Only a few people like Amen do the scan. Because most people know there is no scientific validity to the test.

I'm also speaking from the experience of many autistic people and families who have been basically made to spend huge amounts of money on this only to get seriously weird results. I was diagnosed with autism when I got mine. He diagnosed me with traumatic brain injury even though none had happened. (He did get temporal lobe epilepsy accurate but that's one of a tiny number of brain conditions it's valid for.) A guy I knew who was diagnosed with AS? Amen called him a drug addict. He had never taken (either illegally or by prescription) a single addictive mind altering drug. Amen called him a liar based on only his brain scan. I related these stories in another forum once without mentioning his name and a mother told me he was well known in the Bay Area autism parent community for making these sorts of inaccurate pronouncements and insisting he's right. That alone should tell you he is not doing this scientifically and is prone to massive confirmation bias -- he never has to see when he is wrong or learn from his mistakes because according to him he is always right (and if all available evidence contradicts his "findings" then he doesn't concede he is wrong, he just insists he has found something nobody else knew about, even calling people liars if need be).

His idea that I had a brain injury led someone to seriously damage the reputation of someone that others (searching for a head injury where none existed) accused of kicking me in the head when no such thing took place. If he contradicted them they called him a liar and if I contradicted them they said I had amnesia. Nobody would have been grasping at straws to find nonexistent head injuries if he hadn't said that about me. The guy accused had to live with rumors about him that have not died fifteen years later. And the guy Amen accused of drug abuse, imagine if that went on his permanent medical record.

So no, don't look into this guy. Save your money. Seriously.

at the brain scan store?

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The major advantage to getting a CAT brain scan and a regular MRI is often simply a general conclusion that everything looks normal. The major advantage of getting a EEG is often also that everything looks normal. Occasionally something can jump out on a CAT scan or MRI scan or an EEG but there is no guarantee that will happen at all. Even a SPECT may not explain that much at all. The SPECT may be read as normal or something along the lines of there may be something here and there but no one knows what it is or isn't/what it means/doesn't mean. Lots of conditions from Asperger's to autism to the ADHDs to even some of the many epilepsies do not show up on standard brain scans/EEGs, etc. Many very subtle paying attention difficulties can be traced to something along the lines of one of the many epilepsies, ADHD Inattentive, central auditory processing disorder, a brain injury, sports concussions, and so on. To my knowledge, depression and anxiety do not show up on brain scans/EEGs and one might consider pausing before triggering the mental health system which quite often will throw very powerful meds at those two words: depression and anxiety. Under ideal conditions a customer is correctly diagnosed and finds some help (not a cure) but often a customer can be mislabeled and hurt by being asked to take the wrong medicines for what they have. Regarding SPECT scans, there is no consensus on what all SPECT scans mean at all. That's my understanding. There are some well known people who push SPECT scans with well written and appealing advertising (because they do them/make money off of SPECT scans) but that is not the same as candidly talking about the known limitations of expensive SPECT scans. Too much of descriptions surrounding many SPECT scans is exhaggeration only since the SPECT scans cannot see neurons on a molecular or atomic basis. Some persons who make money off of SPECT scans distort what the SPECT scans mean. No one today to my knowledge really knows how to read the intellectual content of even 1 neuron in the human brain, that is, they don't know where numbers and pictures and concepts are actually stored. Some day they will but that may 1,000 years from today: year 3011. Sorry if my view offends some readers but 2011 brain scans is not Star Trek TV medicine yet. As silly as it sounds, often costly brain scans (2011) mean the customers receive pretty brain scan pictures which are read as normal or if something seems to show up, no one for sure knows that it really means/doesn't mean. Too much of brain scans (2011) is puffing/fibbing. Some brain scans can reveal items such as brain tumors/multiple sclerosis, etc. but many of the areas involving autism - Asperger's - etc. are so very subtle they it might require the customer to die and then the brain is autopsied revealing diffuse axonal damage/whatever. There is an emerging area - sports concussions - where lots of information is coming from autopsies of retired, dead football players vs live and breathing football players. That's kind of the state of the art (my view) and it hints as to how difficult it can be to try to figure out what may going on causing a learning disability or a mood challenge/whatever. Too many news items about brain scans which come from universities and private clinics and so on are often veiled publicity-mongering designed to make a university or a clinic look good and to attract more customers and additional research dollars. In many cases, It's more PT Barnum than actual reality. It may be helpful to consider lowering one's expectations a little as to what current (2011) brain scans etc. can really show and to expect a noticeable clash between how brain scans etc. are advertised (the news media/sensational Hollywood-like press releases) and what the brain scans really can reveal.

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Agree with what you say.

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Agree with what you say.

When I saw this

http://www.ted.com/talks/aditi_shankard ... rders.html

I really wanted to get a test done for Tenzin.


This seems very promising and accurate.

For what an MRI is likely to cost, IMHO you'd be better off getting neuropsych testing (which will cost about the same).

Modern scanning technology isn't going to do what you want it to do. And if the treatment isn't surgical, then it'll be drugs, and you can do those on a trial-and-error basis without expensive scans (been there, done that myself).

thank you for that, obviously i had no clue as to the man's nature. i could only go on what was being broadcast on my local PBS station, which uses the man as a cash cow.