Magnetic resonance imaging after most common form of concussion

A MR investigation was performed within 24 hours and after 3 months in 20 patients who had suffered a concussion with a verified loss of consciousness of maximally 5 minutes. As a control group, 20 age- and gender matched patients with minor orthopaedic injuries had a MR investigation using the same protocol.In a concussion population with an average LOC duration of 1. 4 minutes no case with unequivocal intracranial traumatic pathology was detected.An ordinary concussion with short lasting LOC does not or only seldom result in a degree of diffuse axonal injury (DAI) that is visualized by conventional MR with field strength of 1.0 Tesla (T). Analysis of earlier MR studies in concussion using field strength of 1.5 T as well as of studies with diffusion tensor MR imaging (MR DTI) reveal methodological shortcomings, in particular use of inadequate control groups. There is, therefore, a need for carefully controlled studies using MR of higher field strength and/or studies with MR DTI exclusively in common concussion with LOC of maximally 5 minutes.After concussion (or mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI)), a significant proportion of subjects report persisting symptoms that include headache, cognitive dysfunction, dizziness, fatigue, and irritability. This cluster of rather non-specific symptoms has been termed as the postconcussion syndrome (PCS), a condition that has been debated since the end of the 19th century and still remains controversial. Several authors suggest that the symptoms of postconcussion syndrome are due to structural abnormalities and/or organic cerebral dysfunction [1,2]. Others have assumed that the PCS is psychogenic in origin or have proposed a biopsychosocial model to explain its development into chronicity in some individuals [3,4].For the concept of PCS being caused by an organic injury it seems necessary to assume that the concussion produces long-lasting morphological and/or functional lesions. This is, however, still equivocal, at least when u