The purpose of this work was to determine the extent to which a multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach to patients with dementia and/or traumatic brain injury (TBI) can help to determine the most likely diagnosis and the prognosis of these patients.

Volumetric brain MRI alone is recognized as a useful imaging tool to differentiate behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) from the more common Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Our objective is to create a protocol that will provide additional non-standard, objective imaging data that can be utilized clinically to distinguish common and uncommon forms of dementia and TBI. As patients with these diseases are increasingly presenting to clinical practice, our ability to combine multiple parameters within the standard 30-minute or 45-minute (pre- and post-contrast) MRI exams has high potential to affect current and future clinical practice.

All MRI studies were performed on 1.5 T MRI GE 450w or GE HDx imagers. All patients were seen clinically in outpatient practices. All techniques are FDA approved. The 30 minute protocol utilized T2w FSE 3 mm, 2.5 mm SWAN, 3D T1 sagittal 1.2 mm, DWI 5 mm, 3D FLAIR 1.2 mm, 2.5 mm SWAN (susceptibility sensitive), 3D T1 sagittal 1.2 mm, arterial spin labeling perfusion, posterior cingulate single voxel PRESS MR spectroscopy and NeuroQuant automated volumetric analysis and LesionQuant automated lesion detection and measurement. The 45-minute TBI protocol added diffusion tensor imaging, MR spectroscopy (MRS) of normal appearing frontal white matter and 3D gadolinium enhanced technique.

The combination of multiparametric data together with standard imaging and clinical information allowed radiologic interpretation that was able to focus on 1–2 specific diagnoses and to indicate those patients in which a combination of pathologies was most likely. Neurologists, gerontologists, neuropsychologists and psychiatric specialists used these data and our summary conclusions to develop more specific diagnoses, treatments and prognoses.

Readily available MRI techniques can be added to standard imaging to markedly improve the usefulness of the radiologic opinion in cases of subjective cognitive insufficiency, clinical mild cognitive insufficiency, behavioral pathologies, dementia and post-traumatic brain syndromes.