MRI - nonspecific white matter disease

[catsom]

I have not yet been diagnosed. I spoke with my neuro's nurse on the phone and she told me my head MRI showed that everything was normal but I did notice a sentence on the report that said "minimal nonspecific white matter disease suggested."

Have any of you had that finding on your MRI's? Do you know what that means?

[MSer102]

In the central nervous system, the nerve cells are organized in a way that tends to keep the main bodies of cells grouped together and the long "transmitting" parts of the cells grouped together.

The main bodies of the cells (and some supporting tissue) forms what's called gray matter - because that's what it looks like. The long transmitting parts of the cells - the axons - forms what's called white matter. The axons are covered with an insulating substance called myelin. The myelin makes the axons look white - which is how the white matter got its name.

There's are conditions that affect primarily white matter. They include all kinds of conditions like blood vessel conditions and migraine and other things. One of the other things is a group of conditions called demyelinating diseases that damage the myelin around the nerve axons. MS is one of the demyelinating diseases.

Different conditions cause changes in the brain that can be detected by and MRI. Some of the conditions cause little areas of damage that can be picked up on an MRI. The appearance is roughly the same for all of them. Other conditions have very characteristic appearances. Strokes and tumors tend to have particular ways they appear. Damage caused by MS has a particular way it usually looks also. Because MS is a demyelinating disease, most of the damage from it shows up on an MRI in the white matter, which is where the myelin is.

Now that you know what white matter is and why it's significant in MS, the rest of the statement is pretty much what it says.

"Nonspecific" means that your MRI shows the kinds of changes that could be caused by one of those general conditions where the MRI tends to look alike for all of them. Nothing in particular - not specific - stands out that gives clues about which one of those conditions might be going on.

"Minimal" means that there isn't very much of that kind of change present. Minimal signifies that there's not much going on and that not many areas of brain cells are affected.

In looking for MS in particular, minimal and nonspecific don't suggest MS. Your neurologist will take that into account along with your other test results in determining what else might be causing your symptoms. If your body isn't giving up more specific information, it might take awhile before that happens.