Yen-Lin Huang, Ying-Chi Tseng, David Yen-Ting Chen, Hui-Ling Hsu and Chi-Jen Chen
Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a large subgroup of traumatic brain injury in which patients experience minor but persistent neurophysiologic dysfunctions that lead to disability in social interaction and daily work. New emerging magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques hope to provide better understanding of the underlying pathophysiology of various symptoms in mTBI. Susceptibility-weighted MRI (SWMRI) is a MRI technique particularly sensitive in detecting cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) in the brain parenchyma. Studies have shown evidence of CMBs associated with mTBI, particularly at gray-white matter junction. Although the significance of CMBs has been debated in recent years, there are evidences that these subtle image findings may have diagnostic and prognostic implications, and possibly an imaging biomarker in mTBI. SWMRI is recommended as complementary sequence to the MRI protocol for patients with mTBI for detection of CMBs as well as for further evaluate the severity of injury and future treatment planning.