Hospital da Luz Coimbra has now available the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Functional Brain , an innovating and non-invasive exam that allows to visualize the brain in operation, based on small variations in the blood flow. This way, it is possible to detect brain problems – namely those caused by cerebrovascular accident (CVA) – or map the brain for surgeries in patients with epilepsy, Alzheimer or certain tumours, so as to establish the most adequate line of therapy and monitor results of treatment and rehabilitation. Hospital da Luz Coimbra is the only private hospital in the central region to offer this exam, inscribed in its strategy of investment in innovation for the practice of a Medicine of excellence and creating value for the patient. The functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) came to surpass the static model of visualization and took further our knowledge of the brain, now unravelled in full operation. Since this is a highly differentiated exam, its availability is limited, both in private and public sectors. The live-streamed heart “The main advantage of fMRI is allowing to locate in a totally non-invasive manner the brain areas responsible for the most important functions. This way, we can contribute to reduce postoperative morbidity, by enabling a much more informed surgical mapping”, explains Daniela Jardim Pereira, HL Coimbra neuroradiologist. The assessment of the need to perform this exam, she adds, “is ensured by the neurosurgeon or by the multidisciplinary team, according to the underlying disease (tumour, epilepsy or vascular malformations, for instance), location of the lesion, therapeutic purpose and prognostic”. Freire Gonçalves , HL Coimbra neurologist, highlights, on its turn, “how extraordinary have been” the advances in the knowledge of the brain, diseases and health. “Presently, it is possible to identify the structures of the nervous system and recognize their alterations in many diseases, thanks to much more sophisticated technologies, that allow their molecular visualization and operation monitoring. On the other hand, and in a macro perspective, it is possible, through imaging studies, to observe the anatomy of the brain in vivo and identify the lesions surrounding it, the fMRI being the technique of higher objectivity and efficacy in this field”. In most cases, this information is obtained while the patient performs a particular task – such as, for instance, move the fingers or utter words to evaluate the motor and language functions, respectively. The benefits of these non-invasive methods are obvious, as further explains Freire Gonçalves: “We can talk, laugh, listen to an instruction or a piece of music, watch an image, move a limb, perform any task, and the brain area activated in that performance is immediately identified. Or, if there is a lesion in that area, the activation will be disturbed, just as the corresponding function. We can observe that at rest, the brain does not rest. In fact, the way the neural networks behave while at rest, will help to understand the brain better in operation. As a matter of fact, the brain activity takes place at different levels, not all of them conscious”. “The role of the fMRI in neuropsychology will be decisive in the research on cognitive functions – namely memory – and will enable significant advances in the knowledge of degenerative diseases , such as Alzheimer”, concludes the neurologist.
