What is a "PET scan"?

What is a "PET scan"?

Charles Ribak, Ph.D. (Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology, UC Irvine School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: If I have one seizure, will I definitely have another?; Is there a cure for epilepsy?; What are the surgical treatments for epilepsy? and more...

A PET scan analyzes the amount of glucose, or sugar uptake by the brain. One would inject in a glucose substitute that has a label on it, and then take images of the brain during a period of time shortly after the seizure. The PET scan allows us to look at regions of the brain that are either hypermetabolic i.e. using a lot of sugar, or parts of the brain that are hypometabolic i.e. using very little sugar. It turns out that for Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, the temporal lobe shows hypometabolism.