White spots on MRI

[Kris450]

My mother went into the emergency room because she was dizzy and could not see straight. They did an MRI and told her she had a brain aneurysm. She had to be air lifted out of state. They are suppose to do surgery. My aunt over heard the doctors talking about white spots on her MRI. Is this "whit spot" the anuerysm or is it something else on top of that?

[Neuro Forum]

Thanks for using the forum. I am happy to address your questions, and my answer will be based on the information you provided here. Please make sure you recognize that this forum is for educational purposes only, and it does not substitute for a formal office visit with your doctor.

Without the ability to examine your mom and review her imaging and obtain a history, I can not tell you what the exact cause of her imaging findings are. However I will try to provide you with some useful information.

Without viewing the MRI, it is difficult for me to understand whether or not the white spots in the brain are related to your mom's aneurysm. However, in general, unless the aneurysm ruptured and there was bleeding in the brain, these are likely unrelated to the aneurysm, as aneurysms would not cause white spots in the brain, they mainly cause symptoms through local mass effect (due to pressing on surrounding brain structures if they are large), and their main risk lies in them ruputuring and bleeding.

There are multiple causes for so called plaques in the brain. Most often, these are due to what is called "chronic small vessel disease", literally meaning diseased small vessels that supply blood flow to the brain. This is not an uncommon process in the brain and increases with age. This is not a disease in and of itself but rather is a reflection of unhealthy blood vessels, damaged by years of plaque build-up. This is most often due to a combination of several factors including the following: high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, and high cholesterol. If these factors are well controlled, the damage to the brain can be stabilized and further damage prevented. These would be unrelated to the aneurysm, except that they may reflect overall unhealthy brain blood vessels. Other causes include, but are not limited to, migraine, multiple sclerosis, other demyelinating disease, and inflammatory processes such as vasculitis, but these would have to be taken in the right context of the patient.

It is important for you to follow up with your mom's physicians, for you to ask the physicians who viewed her MRI for more information.

Thank you for this opportunity to answer your questions, I hope you find the information I have provided useful, good luck.

[Carla46501]

Hi, does anyone in your family have a history of migraines