Originally posted by Echo2099
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While it may be true that it isn't possible to calculate the exact percentage of brain atrophy from an MRI, and that estimating atrophy may be different for the different neurodegenerative diseases, the medical literature contains ample credible research and articles about how brain atrophy can be and is estimated via MRI. The new heightened interest in brain atrophy and MS was spurred in part by existing MRI evidence.
Even someone who has never seen an MRI before can compare the MRI of a healthy brain and the MRI of a person with advanced Alzheimer's disease and see unmistakably how badly the brain has atrophied. Simple comparison against anatomical landmarks gives clues about atrophy in cases that aren't as obvious.
And for a neurologist to go further and say that brain volume can't be estimated by MRI not only disregards the existing evidence and scientific support for it, but is completely insulting to the neuroscientists who have been working with brain atrophy in neurodegenerative diseases and improving technology for measuring it since the MRI first began being used in commercial medicine some 30 years ago.
Brain atrophy is not a conversation a lot of neurologists want to have with their patients. Currently there's nothing that can be done to reverse existing atrophy. Talking about that can be a depressing conversation that isn't worth the amount of time it will take, so there's little constructive point in going there.
Until neurologists are ready to have meaningful conversations about medication and lifestyle choices for preventing brain atrophy and preserving brain health, a lot of them are going to shut down conversations with this kind of non-answer.
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