Meet the new detective of the nerve world: MRI Neurography!
Handling patients with Prolapsed intervertebral disc and offering them gabapentin for years is what we are doing for decades now. Have you ever wished you could literally follow a nerve along its winding path and catch it in the act of being compressed, inflamed, or injured? Well, MRI Neurography does just that—it’s like Sherlock Holmes for your nervous system!
While traditional MRI is great for bones, muscles, and brain tissue, it often misses the subtle screams of your peripheral nerves. That’s where MRI Neurography swoops in like a superhero with a magnifying glass, zooming into every twist and turn of the nerve. Just think of it like switching from a grainy black-and-white TV to full-blown 4K ultra-HD for your nerves.
What Exactly Is MRI Neurography?
MRI Neurography is a cutting-edge imaging technique that allows doctors to visualize nerves with incredible clarity—especially the peripheral nerves, like the sciatic nerve, brachial plexus, or facial nerve. It uses high-resolution MRI sequences to highlight nerves and distinguish them from nearby muscles, vessels, and fat.
This technique uses T2-weighted images with fat suppression, and often 3D STIR (Short Tau Inversion Recovery) sequences, to make abnormal nerves light up like glow sticks in a dark room. If there’s swelling, fibrosis, or compression—it’ll show up.
In short MRI Neurography is the best modality for visualizing peripheral nerve disorders—especially in cases where EMG/NCV or standard MRI gives inconclusive results. From catching a tiny nerve root avulsion to highlighting a subtle perineural mass, this technique changes the game in neurology, orthopaedics, and pain medicine.
When Do We Use MRI Neurography?
If someone’s struggling with unexplained pain, numbness, tingling, or weakness—and standard MRI or EMG just isn’t giving answers—MRI Neurography is the go-to move.
Clinical Indications for MRI Neurography
| Example | Use case | |
| Branchial or lumbosacral plexopathy
| Post traumatic or radiation induced plexus injury | |
| Nerve entrapment syndrome
| Carpal tunnel or piriformis syndrome | |
| Nerve trauma | Sciatica or radial nerve damage
| |
| Nerve sheath tumours | Schwannoma or neurofibroma
| |
| Chronic neuropathies | Diabetic neuropathy, CIDP
| |
Procedural details
Patients lie in a standard MRI machine, but the software sequences are different. Special coils and 3D fat-suppressed images are used. Often, a contrast agent like Gadolinium is given to light up inflammatory or neoplastic areas. And voila—those nerves are on full display!
Take home message: MRI neurography superiority over MRI in lieu
| 1. Nerve visualization 2. Nerve inflammation 3. Anatomical reconstruction 4. Clinical specificity
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