The most important lesson from 83,000 brain scans

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There is this talk at Ted youtube page, called "The most important lesson from 83,000 brain scans" in which doctor Daniel Amen says, how many people who have diagnosis for all kinds of mental disorders actually have an undiagnosed brain injury. So if i get it right many people with all kinds of mental disorder diagnosis don't have those disorders and what they really have is a mild undiagnosed brain injury/concussion? Which leads to next point and that is - at least some, who got autistic/aspergers diagnosis actually have undiagnosed brain injury as well? Sure, you can have both too. But according to Daniel, some people get the mental disorder diagnosis BECAUSE of brain injury, not despite of it. Its just that the doctors don't see inside the skull of a patient and some injuries can change the persons behavior to the point, that doctors think they have the disorder? Tell me what do you think!

And in case of you being to lazy or stupid to find the video, here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esPRsT-lmw8

At 20, I got a brain scan, the doctor who interpreted this, said the differences ("the blood doesn't flow like it should in the brain arteries, Miss Magda") could be the reason standing behind me having such visible schizoid traits. He said it could be why I was like that. I do have SI issues, my physiotherapist said this to me last year, he said "I was an evident case of SI issues in an adult person" and that it could have its reason in the fact of the lack of oxygen occuring when mom was in the labor and the midwife had to squeeze me out of her by jumping on her belly. So that's not only like that it's about my personality - there are some more physical traits about me, too - OCD, ADD, motor skills affected, hypersensitivity to stimuli, hyperlexia (for what else can it be, when at 3 and 30 you read on the same level and as a first grader and as an adult you are the same perfect at spelling?) etc.

Edit: double post I couldn't get rid of, otherwise.

I wasn't asking about personal experience actually. But anyway thanks for sharing. Anyone else has anything to say? I wonder why this thing (that idea, not my post) hasn't gone viral yet?

If the idea is "why are we not using brain scans to diagnose behavioral and mental problems?" then, yes, I have something to say: Why aren't we? The evidence from the Amen video (which I posted about elsewhere before I saw your thread) seems to be very compelling that some behavior and mental functioning problems CAN very much be seen when using the right kind of brain scan. Amen uses a radioactive isotope, which disturbs me and is why I would not have one. But there are a lot of other types of brainwave "reading" devices out there that work in other ways.

Yesterday, I heard a report on NPR Science Friday program (OK, two days ago...) about a doctor in Italy who has invented a 'brain stethoscope" which translates brainwave activity into an audible, synthetic human voice sound. Wow! So fascinating. People with seizers, ADD, and some other conditions show extremely different sounds. The "normal" people's brains sounding sort of like a steady 'ohmmmm' like sound, and the epileptics like a recoding that is stuck in a repetition of groans. Hard to explain in words. You have to hear it and I think it is archived at the shows website.

I waited to hear the interviewer ask about diagnosis of mental illness or AS using this device, but strangely, he didn't. (The device is still awaiting FDA approval.)

Since the technology for using brain scans to evaluate people with behavioral and mental challenges obviously exists and is not being widely used for diagnosis , my next question is, is someone perhaps being served by suppressing it? Maybe a multi-billion dollar industry of psycho-babbologists, pharmaceutical companies, etc. etc who are already "tooled up" to deal with these things using less objective methods?

I think the reason that doctors aren't using the brain scanning method, because it's very expensive to pay for a brain scan. If a brain scan would cost $100 instead of $1000, more people would be getting brain scans done as a way of getting a diagnosis of whatever condition they might have. That's just my slant on this. I'm sure there might be people here who know the answer more than I do.

I think that is a factor but I also think that some in the medical & mental health professions are greedy b@stards. Some psychs may not want to refer patients because the patient may try getting treatment from the other doctor instead of continuing to see the psych so the psych would lose patients which means they make less money. I think if patients saw docs/psychs who were qualified to run the test themselves, a brain scan get would recommend more often so the docs/psychs can charge for it & make more money.
I do think it might help for more patients to get brain scans but think lots of people have mental disorders without having head injuries. Lots of mental disorders are known to run in families which implies a genetic link or caused by environmental factors of how they were raised instead of head injuries. Some people also develop mental problems as a result of a traumatic event not necessarily anything physical.

Before the 1980's, many people who would be on the Spectrum in the 2010's would have been diagnosed with something called Minimal Brain Dysfunction. This diagnosis was based, not on brain scans, but as something which was "determined" after ruling out more evident organic disorders. It was used in a similar fashion as PDD-NOS is used under the DSM IV. It was also analogous to diagnosing someone during the Victorian Era with "Neurasthenia."

hmmmmm...

Very interesting, perhaps. Can you please provide references?

I match that hmmmmmm...and add an interesting