02/09/2025
🧠✨ What’s the Difference Between Head Scans?
Medical imaging can feel like alphabet soup — X-Ray, CT, MRI, MRA, PET. Each one shows something different about the head, and together they give doctors a complete picture. Here’s the simple breakdown 👇
🔹 X-Ray – Fast, basic, and best for bones. It shows fractures in the skull but not the brain itself.
🔹 CT Scan – Quick and powerful. Like an advanced X-ray that shows the brain, but in less detail than MRI. Great for spotting big issues fast: strokes, bleeds, or large tumors.
🔹 MRI – The deep dive. Takes longer but gives highly detailed images of the brain, picking up small strokes, bleeds, lesions, or tumors that a CT might miss.
🔹 MRA – Think of it as an MRI for the blood vessels. It shows how blood is flowing in the brain and reveals if arteries are blocked or narrowed.
🔹 PET Scan – Looks at function, not structure. It tracks how much sugar each part of the brain uses, lighting up the most active areas in color. Because cancer cells use huge amounts of energy, they glow brightest — making PET scans powerful tools for detecting cancer.
✨ In short:
X-Ray = Bone
CT = Quick brain snapshot
MRI = Detailed brain view
MRA = Blood flow
PET = Brain activity & cancer detection
Each tool sees what the others can’t — and together, they save lives.
