Case Study: MRI - Brain infarct
Trudy, a 7 year old German Shepherd Dog (Alsatian), suddenly developed an inability to stand without falling over and kept her head tilted over towards the left. Before this occurred, she was fit and well, and had shown no hint of any problems. Her owners were quite concerned that she may have been poisoned, but after assessment by our neurologist it was felt that it was more likely that the answer was to be found in her brain. An MRI scan was recommended and it showed that she had developed an infarct (a problem like a stroke) in a part of her brain called the cerebellum. Although this was very distressing for Trudy and her owners at the time, Trudy, like many dogs with this problem, showed gradual improvement and went on to return to an active life.
These are two images taken from Trudy’s MRI study of her brain. In the first image (above), her brain is the grey tissue in the middle of the image, surrounded by the dark muscle that overlies her skull. There is a small bright area just to the left of the middle which is the infarct. The second image (below) is from a special MRI study that shows up infarcts as focal bright white regions within the brain – although this looks more fuzzy than other MRI images, it is used because it helps to confirm that the abnormality seen on other MRI scans is actually an infarct.
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