Can a Brain MRI Reveal Mold Illness? Why We Use NeuroQuant for Biotoxin Patients
Most mold and biotoxin testing is indirect — bloodwork that infers inflammation. NeuroQuant is different. It measures your actual brain structures from a standard MRI and compares them to a normative database — turning “I think mold is affecting my brain” into something you can see and measure.
When someone comes to us convinced that mold has affected their thinking — the brain fog, the word-finding trouble, the sense that their memory is not what it was — we can order a whole panel of labs to build the case. The Visual Contrast Sensitivity (VCS) test, C4a, TGF-β1, MMP-9, MSH, the HLA-DR gene panel: these are the classic markers of Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS). They are genuinely useful, and we rely on them. But every one of them is indirect. They measure the smoke, not the fire — inflammatory signals in the blood that imply the brain is under stress.
“Is there a way to actually see what mold is doing to my brain?”
For many patients, there is — and that is where NeuroQuant comes in. NeuroQuant is an FDA-cleared software analysis that takes a standard brain MRI and precisely measures the volume of individual brain structures, then compares each one against a large database of healthy people matched for your age and sex. Instead of inferring brain involvement from bloodwork, you get direct, reproducible, visual evidence of how the brain’s structures have changed. In the world of biotoxin illness, that is a meaningful shift: it moves the conversation from “we think this is happening” to “here is the measurement.”
There is, it’s worth saying, a way to test directly for mold toxins in the blood — serum mycotoxin testing measures specific mycotoxins, and we do use it. But two things are worth understanding. First, serum mycotoxin testing is not really part of the classic Shoemaker protocol, which is built on indirect inflammatory labs like TGF-β1, MSH, MMP-9, and C4a; we use the mycotoxin panel as a helpful adjunct, not the backbone. Second, and more important: in a water-damaged building, mold is only part of the problem. The same buildings expose people to bacterial endotoxins and to actinomycetes (Actinobacteria), and those inflammagens leave their own signatures. A serum mycotoxin test, by definition, only sees the mold. NeuroQuant adds a direct measurement to that otherwise-indirect sequence — showing what the whole biotoxin mixture has actually done to the brain.
This article explains what NeuroQuant is, why we order it for mold and biotoxin patients, what the research from Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker’s group actually found, how the brain pattern can help separate mold from Lyme from endotoxin and actinomycete injury, why interpretation matters as much as ordering, and — practically — how to get it done near our Atlanta office. If you are new to this whole topic, start with our foundational overview: Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS).
Mold & Biotoxin Illness: CIRS, Labs, Serum Mycotoxins & NeuroQuant
In this talk, Martin Van Lear walks through how we approach mold and biotoxin illness — from the CIRS framework and the standard CIRS lab panel to direct serum mycotoxin testing and NeuroQuant volumetric brain imaging. A helpful overview of how all the pieces in this article fit together.
► Watch on YouTubeWhat Is NeuroQuant?
NeuroQuant is a cloud-based, AI-driven software platform developed by Cortechs.ai (formerly CorTechs Labs), a San Diego medical-imaging company. It received its first FDA 510(k) clearance more than a decade ago and has been refined continuously since. The software takes the images from a routine brain MRI and does something a human radiologist cannot do reliably by eye: it automatically identifies, segments, and measures the volume of dozens of individual brain structures — the hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus, caudate, pallidum, cortical gray matter, the ventricles, and many more.
Two features make it clinically powerful. First, it is quantitative: each structure is reported as a precise volume and as a percentage of your total intracranial volume (% ICV), which corrects for the simple fact that people have different-sized heads. Second, it is normative: every measurement is compared against a large reference database of healthy brains matched to your age and sex, and reported as a percentile. A structure sitting at the 16th percentile or the 99th percentile immediately stands out from the expected range — and, critically, the software is calibrated for the fact that a healthy 22-year-old brain looks different from a healthy 62-year-old brain.
NeuroQuant is FDA-cleared and used in mainstream neurology and radiology for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, and microvascular ischemic disease. Cortechs.ai’s more recent releases include NeuroQuant 5.0 (FDA-cleared in 2024) for quantifying ARIA in Alzheimer’s therapy monitoring, and a NeuroQuant Brain Tumor module. In other words, this is established, regulated imaging technology — not a fringe test.
What we do in functional medicine is apply that same validated measurement engine to a different question: what has chronic biotoxin-driven inflammation done to the structure of this person’s brain?
Why We Order It for Mold & Biotoxin Illness
It is one thing to run a stack of CIRS labs and tell a patient their inflammatory markers are abnormal. It is another to show them a report that says, in black and white, that specific structures in their brain fall outside the normal range for their age. For patients who have spent years being told their MRI is “normal” — because a standard radiology read looks for tumors and strokes, not subtle volumetric shifts — this can be validating and clarifying in equal measure.
You see the brain itself
CIRS bloodwork measures inflammatory signals. NeuroQuant measures the organ those signals are acting on — direct structural evidence rather than a downstream inference.
A number, not an opinion
Automated segmentation removes reader-to-reader guesswork. The same brain measured twice gives the same answer, which makes it useful for tracking.
More than one culprit
Because it measures many structures at once, the pattern across them can lean toward mold, endotoxin, or actinomycetes, help separate Lyme, or raise the possibility of prior head injury.
Track your recovery
A scan before treatment and another later can show whether the brain is trending back toward normal as inflammation is brought under control.
None of this replaces the CIRS labs — it complements them. The strongest case is built when the indirect markers (the fire alarm) and the direct imaging (the scorch marks) tell the same story.
The Shoemaker Research: The CIRS Brain “Fingerprint”
The use of NeuroQuant in mold illness traces directly to the research of Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker and colleagues, whose work is archived at survivingmold.com. In a landmark 2014 study published in Neurotoxicology and Teratology, and a 2016 follow-up, his group used NeuroQuant to compare the brains of patients with CIRS acquired from water-damaged buildings (CIRS-WDB) against controls. They were not looking for one shrunken region — they were looking for a combination of changes, a distinctive signature.
What they found was a reproducible pattern they described as a “fingerprint.” Rather than global shrinkage, CIRS brains showed a mix of enlargement in some structures — read as microscopic interstitial edema, essentially inflammatory swelling — and atrophy in others. The classic bilateral structural signature they reported is summarized below.
| Brain structure | Finding in mold CIRS-WDB | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Caudate nucleus | Reduced (both sides) | Atrophy of a deep gray-matter nucleus central to cognition — a hallmark of the mold pattern. |
| Right forebrain parenchyma | Enlarged | Microscopic interstitial edema — inflammatory swelling, not healthy growth. |
| Left amygdala | Enlarged | Part of the characteristic asymmetric swelling seen in water-damaged-building illness. |
| Pallidum (both sides) | Enlarged | Contributes to the deep-nuclei signature; the pallidum-to-caudate ratio is itself informative. |
As the research has matured — especially with the 2023 work by Shoemaker, Heyman, and Lark combining imaging with transcriptomics — the emphasis has expanded from that early edema picture to a three-part signature of established injury that is easy to remember:
- Cortical gray atrophy (CG) — thinning of the brain’s thinking surface.
- Superior lateral ventricle enlargement (SLV) — the fluid spaces widen as tissue is lost. A rising SLV over time signals relentless, progressive CNS atrophy.
- Grey-matter nuclear atrophy (NA) — shrinkage counted across the deep nuclei. The number of atrophied nuclei is one of the most useful figures on the whole report.
Shoemaker calls the nuclear-atrophy, low-metabolism state “brain on ice” — tissue that is structurally present but metabolically stalled. His group ties it to molecular hypometabolism: less RNA reaching the ribosomes, less pyruvate delivered to the CNS, and failing sodium-potassium pumps that brain cells need to signal. In other words, the volume changes on NeuroQuant are the visible shadow of a cellular energy problem.
The key insight throughout is the combination. A single enlarged or shrunken region means little on its own; the fingerprint lives in the pattern across many structures at once. These findings also explain the very symptoms biotoxin patients describe — trouble concentrating, disorientation, difficulty assimilating new information, poor short-term memory. And they are subtle enough that a conventional MRI read calls the scan “unremarkable,” which is exactly why the quantitative, normative approach matters.
It’s Not Just Mold: Endotoxin & Actinomycetes
This is the piece most people miss, and it is central to how we use NeuroQuant. Water-damaged buildings do not just grow mold. They also harbor Gram-negative bacterial endotoxins and actinomycetes (Actinobacteria) — soil-type organisms with waxy, mycolic cell walls that penetrate tissue and provoke the immune system. Each of these leaves a somewhat different mark on the brain, and NeuroQuant, read alongside the transcriptomic testing Shoemaker’s group calls GENIE (Gene Expression, Inflammation Explained), can help tell them apart. Notably, actinomycetes drive activation of the TGF-β receptors — which is part of why one of the classic indirect CIRS labs, TGF-β1, runs high in these patients. The imaging, the transcriptomics, and the bloodwork are all pointing at the same underlying process.
| Inflammagen | Tends to show on NeuroQuant as… | Corroborating signal |
|---|---|---|
| Mold (mycotoxins) | Cortical gray atrophy, superior lateral ventricle enlargement, caudate atrophy | The classic water-damaged-building fingerprint; serum mycotoxins can be measured directly. |
| Endotoxin | Cortical atrophy plus at least two additional atrophied nuclei | On GENIE, over-activation of CD14 and Toll-like receptors 2/4 — the endotoxin-sensing pathway. |
| Actinomycetes | Multinuclear atrophy of the deep nuclei (three, four, or five nuclei) rather than cortical gray — often age-inappropriate | GENIE immune reactivity to Actinobacteria (with TGF-β receptor activation); associated with the deepest “brain on ice” metabolic slowdown. |
So yes — direct serum mycotoxin testing exists and can be useful, and we do use it. But it sits outside the classic Shoemaker protocol (which runs on indirect labs), and a mycotoxin panel only sees mold. It is blind to endotoxin and actinomycetes, which are often the bigger driver of the brain injury. NeuroQuant — a direct measurement, especially paired with GENIE transcriptomics — looks at the downstream result of the whole exposure, which is why we lean on it rather than treating “mold” as the entire story.
This matters enormously for treatment. If actinomycetes or endotoxin are driving the picture, chasing mold alone will disappoint — and, as Shoemaker teaches, reaching for antifungals in these cases can actually make the atrophy pattern worse. Seeing the fuller picture up front changes the plan.
Mold vs. Lyme: The Calculation
One of the most useful things NeuroQuant can do is help distinguish a brain injured by mold from one injured by Lyme — two conditions that look almost identical from the outside but call for very different treatment. This is not guesswork; Shoemaker’s group derived specific, countable differences between the two patterns.
| Feature | Mold (CIRS-WDB) | Lyme / post-Lyme |
|---|---|---|
| Signature deep-nucleus change | Caudate atrophy | Putamen atrophy (a small putamen) |
| Thalamus | Not the defining feature | Enlarged right thalamus |
| Cortex & ventricles | Cortical gray atrophy + superior lateral ventricle enlargement | More isolated nuclear pattern |
| Average number of atrophied gray-matter nuclei | ~2.4 | ~3.0 |
That last row is the heart of “the calculation.” The count of atrophied deep nuclei runs, on average, lower in mold illness (around 2.4) than in Lyme (around 3.0). It is an average, not a bright line — but combined with which structures are affected (caudate points to mold; a small putamen with a large right thalamus points to Lyme), it gives a genuinely useful lean one way or the other.
A caution built into the math: in patients over 40 who have been treated with antifungals, the average nuclear-atrophy count climbs to around 4.5. In the Shoemaker model this is read as antifungals worsening the injury — one reason he counsels against using them reflexively in these patients. It is a vivid example of why the pattern has to be interpreted by someone who knows what they are looking at.
Beyond mold-vs-Lyme, the same interpretive analysis also flags asymmetry (a large left-vs-right difference in a paired structure such as the hippocampus), possible traumatic brain injury, multinuclear atrophy, and lateral ventricle enlargement. In practice it is common to find features of more than one process at once — some mold, some Lyme, a touch of old head injury — and knowing that up front changes how we sequence treatment.
Reading a Real Report: Hippocampal Asymmetry
Here is a simplified example of what a NeuroQuant segmentation and morphometry report looks like. The colored overlays on the MRI slices show the software’s automatic segmentation of individual structures; the table underneath reports each structure’s volume, its percentage of intracranial volume with the normal 5%–95% range, and where it falls as a normative percentile.
This is exactly why the analysis scores asymmetry separately. In this example, neither hippocampus is dramatically small on its own — but the difference between them is larger than what is seen in 99% of healthy people the same age and sex. A conventional radiology read would very likely have called this scan normal. The quantitative, side-by-side comparison is what surfaces the finding, and asymmetry like this is one of the features the Shoemaker analysis weighs when building the overall picture.
A Remarkable Finding: The Changes Can Reverse
Perhaps the most hopeful part of Shoemaker’s NeuroQuant work is what happens with treatment. When patients move through the sequential CIRS protocol — removing exposure, binding toxins, correcting the downstream inflammatory cascade — the abnormal volumes do not stay fixed. Follow-up research reported measurable improvement in the affected structures as patients went from untreated to fully treated, trending back toward normal.
The most striking recent development is the role of VIP (vasoactive intestinal polypeptide), a signaling neuropeptide given intranasally as a late step in the protocol. In the 2023 transcriptomics-plus-imaging work, VIP was associated with correcting grey-matter nuclear atrophy, reducing superior lateral ventricle enlargement, and improving cortical gray — essentially thawing the “brain on ice” by restoring the cellular metabolism underneath it. That expanding lateral ventricle, once thought to mark relentless one-way decline, could in many cases be reversed.
Crucially, those imaging improvements correlated with clinical improvement in executive functioning — the planning, focus, and mental flexibility that biotoxin patients so often lose. That coupling of measurable structure and lived experience is what makes NeuroQuant more than an academic curiosity: it gives us an objective way to ask, “Is what we are doing actually helping the brain?”
Ordering Is Easy. Interpretation Is Everything.
Here is the part that gets lost in the excitement about a “brain scan for mold”: the value of NeuroQuant lives almost entirely in how the results are read and used. Any physician can, in principle, sign an order for the study. Far fewer know how to look at the morphometry report and see the story in it — to weigh the caudate against the putamen, count the atrophied nuclei, notice an asymmetry that each individual volume hides, distinguish a mold pattern from a Lyme pattern from old head trauma, and connect all of that to the endotoxin and actinomycete picture.
A NeuroQuant report handed to someone who doesn’t work in this world is often read as simply “normal for age” — the very conclusion that leaves biotoxin patients stuck for years. The report only becomes powerful when it is interpreted in the context of your exposure history, symptoms, CIRS labs, and (where indicated) GENIE transcriptomics, and then translated into an actual treatment sequence.
Interpretation also means separating exposure-driven change from the ordinary shrinkage of normal aging — and from structures that were simply always on the small side. NeuroQuant reports every measurement against age- and sex-matched norms for exactly this reason, and metrics such as the Hippocampal Occupancy Score help distinguish true neurodegeneration from a congenitally small hippocampus or a purely age-related pattern. Reading those nuances correctly — rather than rubber-stamping “age-appropriate atrophy” — is often the difference between a report that changes a patient’s course and one that gets filed away.
That is precisely where we focus. We are not simply a place to get the scan ordered — we read the results the way this research intends, using a clinician familiar with NeuroQuant, integrate them with the rest of your workup, and provide the clinical guidance and follow-up imaging that tells us whether the brain is recovering. Ordering the MRI is the easy part; interpretation and clinical management are where the difference is made.
NeuroGage: Tracking Change Over Time
A close companion to NeuroQuant is NeuroGage, which extends the same volumetric approach in two directions. It can expand the number of structures analyzed, and — most usefully for our purposes — it can compare a patient’s scans to each other over time rather than only to a normative database. That longitudinal comparison is powerful for biotoxin illness, where the central questions are often “is this getting worse?” and “is treatment turning it around?” By putting a baseline scan next to a later one, NeuroGage can measure whether specific structures are recovering, holding steady, or continuing to change.
For a patient investing in the long arc of biotoxin recovery, having an objective, imaging-based way to measure progress — not just how they feel on a given day — can be genuinely motivating and clinically informative.
Indirect Labs vs. Direct Imaging: How NeuroQuant Fits
To be clear about where NeuroQuant sits in the workup, it helps to lay the two kinds of evidence side by side. Both matter; they answer different questions.
| CIRS labs (indirect) | NeuroQuant (direct) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Inflammatory & immune signals in blood (C4a, TGF-β1, MMP-9, MSH, VCS, HLA-DR) | The actual volume of brain structures on MRI |
| What it tells you | That an inflammatory process is active in the body | Whether — and where — the brain has structurally changed |
| Strength | Sensitive, well-established CIRS framework, guides treatment steps | Objective, visual, reproducible; can flag mold/Lyme/injury patterns |
| Limitation | Infers brain involvement rather than showing it | Shows structure, not cause; needs the labs and history to interpret |
| Best used | To diagnose and stage CIRS and direct therapy | To confirm brain involvement, sort competing causes, and track recovery |
Serum mycotoxin testing is a third, more specialized tool: it is direct, but narrow — it measures mold exposure only, and it is not part of the classic Shoemaker protocol. We reach for it selectively. NeuroQuant is the piece that turns the indirect Shoemaker labs into something you can also see, and used together they document a hard-to-prove, easy-to-dismiss illness from independent angles.
Honest Limits: What NeuroQuant Can & Can’t Do
We think it is important to be straight about the boundaries of this tool, because overselling it does patients no favors.
- It does not prove causation on its own. NeuroQuant measures structure. By itself it cannot declare that mold — rather than endotoxin, actinomycetes, Lyme, injury, or aging — caused a given change. The pattern points strongly, and pairing it with GENIE transcriptomics sharpens the causal read, but imaging alone is suggestive rather than final proof.
- The CIRS interpretation is research-based, not universal. NeuroQuant is FDA-cleared for neurodegenerative and structural indications broadly. Its specific application to biotoxin illness comes from the Shoemaker group’s published research and is used within functional-medicine practice; it is not yet standard in conventional neurology.
- It is one piece of the puzzle. A NeuroQuant should always be read alongside exposure history, symptoms, the CIRS labs, and the rest of the workup — never in isolation.
- It requires the right MRI. The analysis needs a high-resolution 3D volumetric sequence, not just any brain MRI. We help make sure the imaging is ordered correctly so the data is usable.
Held to those limits, NeuroQuant is a genuinely valuable addition — a way to make the invisible visible and to measure progress objectively.
How to Get NeuroQuant — In Atlanta and Beyond
Here is the practical reality: very few imaging centers offer NeuroQuant. It requires both the right MRI sequence and the software post-processing pipeline, and most facilities simply do not have it set up. In the Atlanta area, that leaves patients with limited options — which is one of the reasons we make it available.
We work with an imaging center located right next to our office that can perform the study. Here is how it typically works:
- You need a standard MRI with the correct sequence. This is a routine brain MRI performed with a high-resolution 3D volumetric protocol — the kind of scan any good MRI center can do, once it is ordered correctly.
- Insurance generally covers the MRI portion. The MRI itself is a standard, billable study, so in most cases insurance covers that part. You would need insurance that covers the MRI.
- NeuroQuant is a separate add-on. The NeuroQuant volumetric analysis is potentially an additional fee, ordered in addition to the MRI. We can walk you through what to expect.
- We order, interpret, and manage — not just refer. Getting the right sequence and analysis ordered is where many people get stuck, but the real value is in reading the results correctly and folding them into your overall CIRS workup and treatment plan. That interpretation-and-management piece is what we do.
In the Atlanta area and interested in NeuroQuant? Contact us and we can help arrange the MRI at the center next to our office and add on the NeuroQuant analysis. Not in the Atlanta area? Reach out anyway — we’re glad to explain how NeuroQuant works and how to go about ordering it where you are.
How It Fits Our Treatment Approach
At Tree of Light Health, NeuroQuant is not the destination — it is a map. Once we can see how biotoxin illness has affected the brain, we build a comprehensive, root-cause plan and then use follow-up imaging and labs to confirm we are moving in the right direction. Depending on the picture, that plan may draw on:
- Getting the diagnosis right — the full CIRS workup, NeuroQuant, and where indicated GENIE transcriptomics, to sort mold from endotoxin, actinomycetes, and the wider world of biotoxin illness from water-damaged buildings.
- Removing and binding the toxins — ending exposure and using targeted binders and detox protocols to clear the biotoxin load.
- Calming the whole system — addressing the impact of environmental toxins on the brain and mood, and, where relevant, mast-cell reactivity in MCAS.
- Rebuilding the brain — restoring the inflammatory and metabolic environment (including neuropeptides such as VIP where appropriate) and supporting recovery with autonomic and nervous-system work, microcurrent neurofeedback, and membrane-repair nutrition — then using follow-up imaging to confirm it is working.
The goal is the same one in our tagline: whole-person, root-cause care that helps the brain and body heal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is NeuroQuant the same as a regular brain MRI?
No. NeuroQuant uses the images from an MRI, but it is a separate software analysis layered on top. A regular MRI is read by a radiologist looking mainly for tumors, bleeds, and strokes. NeuroQuant automatically measures the volume of individual brain structures and compares them to a normative database by age and sex — a level of quantitative detail a standard read does not provide. You need the MRI first; NeuroQuant is the analysis that turns it into volumetric data.
Do I need a special MRI machine?
You need a standard MRI performed with the correct high-resolution 3D volumetric sequence. Most quality MRI centers can produce the right images once the study is ordered properly — the harder part is that few centers actually run the NeuroQuant analysis afterward. We coordinate both so the imaging is usable.
Will my insurance pay for it?
In most cases insurance covers the MRI itself, since that is a standard, billable study — so you would want insurance that covers the MRI portion. The NeuroQuant volumetric analysis is typically a separate, additional fee ordered on top of the MRI. We can explain what to expect before you commit.
Can NeuroQuant prove that mold made me sick?
Not on its own. It can show that your brain’s structures fall outside the normal range and can flag a pattern consistent with mold-related CIRS — or with Lyme, or with prior injury. Proving cause requires putting that pattern together with your exposure history, symptoms, and the CIRS lab panel. Think of NeuroQuant as strong corroborating evidence rather than a standalone verdict.
Can it distinguish mold illness from Lyme disease?
It can help, and there is a real basis for it. In the Shoemaker model, mold tends to show caudate atrophy with cortical gray atrophy and ventricle enlargement, while Lyme tends toward putamen atrophy with an enlarged right thalamus — and the average count of atrophied deep nuclei runs lower in mold (about 2.4) than in Lyme (about 3.0). Combined with asymmetry, possible head injury, and multinuclear-atrophy scoring, this gives a genuine lean. Many patients show features of more than one process at once, which is exactly why it’s weighed alongside your other testing rather than read in isolation.
Isn’t there a simpler blood test for mold?
Yes — serum mycotoxin testing measures specific mold toxins directly, and we do use it. Two caveats, though. It is not part of the classic Shoemaker protocol, which runs on indirect inflammatory labs (TGF-β1, MSH, MMP-9, C4a), so we treat it as an adjunct rather than the backbone. And it only sees mold — it is blind to the endotoxin and actinomycete exposure that often drives as much of the brain injury. NeuroQuant reflects the effect of the whole exposure, which is why we don’t rely on a mycotoxin blood test alone.
Can’t any doctor just order NeuroQuant for me?
Ordering it is the easy part. The hard — and valuable — part is interpretation: reading the morphometry report correctly, recognizing the mold, Lyme, endotoxin, actinomycete, injury, and asymmetry patterns, and integrating them with your history, symptoms, and CIRS labs into a treatment plan. A report read by someone unfamiliar with this work is often dismissed as “normal for age.” That interpretation and ongoing management is the part we focus on.
Can NeuroQuant show whether treatment is working?
Yes — that is one of its most useful roles. Shoemaker’s research found that abnormal volumes trended back toward normal with proper CIRS treatment, and that the imaging improvement tracked with clinical improvement. A baseline scan and a later scan (especially compared with NeuroGage) can give an objective read on recovery.
I’m not near Atlanta. Can you still help?
Yes. Reach out and we can explain how NeuroQuant works and how to go about getting the right MRI and analysis ordered where you live. If you are in the Atlanta area, we can help arrange it directly at the center next to our office.
See What Mold Is Really Doing to Your Brain
If you have biotoxin symptoms and want direct, measurable evidence — not just another round of indirect labs — NeuroQuant may be the missing piece. In the Atlanta area we can help arrange the MRI at the center next to our office and add on the NeuroQuant analysis. Anywhere else, reach out and we’ll help you understand your options.
Explore related reading: biotoxin illness & mold, binders, and detox protocols.
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References & Further Reading
- Shoemaker RC, House D, Ryan JC. Structural brain abnormalities in patients with inflammatory illness acquired following exposure to water-damaged buildings: a volumetric MRI study using NeuroQuant®. Neurotoxicology and Teratology. 2014;45:18–26. PMID: 24946038. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24946038
- Shoemaker RC, et al. NeuroQuant II (2016 follow-up analysis of volumetric brain changes in CIRS-WDB). SurvivingMold.com. survivingmold.com — NeuroQuant II paper
- Shoemaker R, Heyman A, Lark D. Transcriptomics and Brain Volumetrics Define the Causes of Cognitive Impairment in Patients with CIRS and Support the Use of VIP in Treatment. Medical Research Archives. 2023;11(3). doi:10.18103/mra.v11i3.3659. esmed.org/MRA
- Shoemaker R, Meinhardt J, Heyman A, Lark D. Exposure to Actinobacteria resident in water-damaged buildings and resultant immune injury in Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome. Medical Research Archives. 2021;9(11). (Defines the Actinobacteria Index, Dominance Index, and TGF-β receptor activation.)
- GENIE transcriptomic assay (Gene Expression, Inflammation Explained; 188-gene RNA panel; markers of exposure to mycotoxins, endotoxins, and Actinobacteria), ordered via ProgeneDx. progenedx.com
- CorTechs Labs. Understanding NeuroQuant®: interpreting age-related atrophy findings and the Hippocampal Occupancy Score. cortechslabs.com
- Shoemaker RC. NeuroQuant Links Mold Illness to Structural Change in Brain. SurvivingMold.com. survivingmold.com
- Online NeuroQuant Analysis (scoring for mold points, Lyme points, asymmetry, possible TBI, multinuclear atrophy, and lateral ventricle enlargement). SurvivingMold.com store. survivingmold.com/store/online-neuroquant-analysis
- Cortechs.ai. NeuroQuant® — AI-driven volumetric brain MRI analysis; product information and FDA 510(k) clearances (including NeuroQuant 5.0, 2024). cortechs.ai/products/neuroquant
- NeuroGage LLC. Toxic Exposure & CIRS — longitudinal volumetric MRI analysis. neurogage.com/toxic-exposure-cirs
- Holistic Primary Care. NeuroQuant: Innovative Tool Helps Detect Mold-Related Brain Changes. holisticprimarycare.net
- Nutrition with Judy. CIRS and NeuroQuant — patient-facing overview of volumetric brain changes in mold illness. nutritionwithjudy.com/cirs-and-neuroquant
