WHY ARE SPECT SCANS ORDERED?
Our clinic and other clinics around the country have correlated neurological, psychiatric, and behavioral states with specific brain SPECT patterns. Information from your scan will help your doctor understand your unique brain pattern and treatment needs. Some of the most common reasons SPECT is ordered include: obtaining baseline physiological data, analyzing the physiology of underlying mood disorders, evaluating unusual or unresponsive neuropsychiatric conditions, evaluating and subtyping ADD, evaluating violence, aggression or suicidal behaviors, evaluating substance abuse or toxic exposure, looking for causes of deteriorating mental functioning (after head trauma, stroke or suspected dementia) and performing before and after treatment studies. For example, it is often asked if SPECT scans will show learning disabilities. Yes, in general. It will show if there is decreased activity in the left temporal lobe (that is where learning skills show up) but it won’t specifically tell what
