Better off not knowing

Brain imaging seen leading to more false alarms | Science | Reuters

Turns out that if you have an MRI of your brain for no particular reason, you might get a surprise:

Improvements in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have led to increased detection of minor brain abnormalities that may worry the patient, but often will never cause any problems, according to study findings reported in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The study involved 2,000 people, between 46 and 96 years of age, with no symptoms of brain disease who underwent MRI between 2005 and 2007.

Dead brain tissue was the most common abnormality, seen in 7.2 percent of subjects. Other abnormalities included benign brain tumors and ballooned blood vessels, also known as aneurysms.

This terminology is very "cute":

While incidental findings on MRI, sometimes referred to as "incidentalomas," may prompt further investigation they should never be used as the sole reason for receiving a particular medical or surgical treatment, van der Lugt emphasized.