A New Way Forward: How Brain SPECT Imaging Can Improve Outcomes and Transform Mental Health Care Into Brain Health Care.

Daniel G Amen,Michael Easton

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.715315

Abstract

In the past three decades, brain single-photon-emission-computed-tomography (SPECT) imaging has garnered a significant, evidence-based foundation for a wide array of indications relevant to the field of clinical psychiatry, including dementia, traumatic brain injuries, seizures, cerebrovascular disease, complex neuropsychiatric presentations, and treatment-resistant disorders. In clinical psychiatric practice, however, SPECT remains underutilized. Only a small percentage of psychiatric clinicians use brain imaging technology. In this article, the authors provide a rationale for shifting the paradigm to one that includes broader use of SPECT in the clinical psychiatric setting, primarily for patients with complex conditions. This paper will outline seven specific clinical applications. Adding neuroimaging tools like SPECT to day-to-day clinical practice can help move psychiatry forward by transforming mental health care, which can be stigmatizing and often shunned by the general public, to brain health care, which the authors argue will be more likely to be embraced by a larger group of people in need.

Highlights

Despite the early enthusiasm in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s about the use of functional neuroimaging in psychiatric practice, if you were to ask the majority of psychiatrists today why they don’t utilize it, their response would most likely be, “there are no adequate large-scale studies demonstrating the validity of this in helping with psychiatric diagnosis and treatment.” Yet there are nearly 15,000 references on www.pubmed.gov about brain single-photon-emission-computed-tomography (SPECT) imaging encompassing a wide variety of neuropsychiatric indications [1]
The authors’ experiences have found that a secondary benefit of using brain SPECT imaging is that by seeing images of their brains, the patients and their families are less burdened by the stigma of mental illness and the guilt and shame that accompany it
We suggest a SPECT scan should be considered after two treatment failures

Summary

A New Way Forward

Reviewed by: John Dimitrios Papatriantafyllou, Third Age Day-Care Center, IASIS, Greece. In the past three decades, brain single-photon-emission-computed-tomography (SPECT) imaging has garnered a significant, evidence-based foundation for a wide array of indications relevant to the field of clinical psychiatry, including dementia, traumatic brain injuries, seizures, cerebrovascular disease, complex neuropsychiatric presentations, and treatment-resistant disorders. A small percentage of psychiatric clinicians use brain imaging technology. The authors provide a rationale for shifting the paradigm to one that includes broader use of SPECT in the clinical psychiatric setting, primarily for patients with complex conditions. Adding neuroimaging tools like SPECT to day-to-day clinical practice can help move psychiatry forward by transforming mental health care, which can be stigmatizing and often shunned by the general public, to brain health care, which the authors argue will be more likely to be embraced by a larger group of people in need

INTRODUCTION

SUMMARY

ETHICS STATEMENT