How can you get a brain scan to check for chemical imbalances?
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University researchers are doing scans of brains for different things. For example, they are studying the effects of sex on the brain or the use of medication on the brain.
But, there is no "exact" scan that will show chemical imbalance. They have shown that certain areas of the brains of people with mood disorders or schizaphrenia are different than "normal" brains.
Eventaully, you will be able to get scanned. The science is developing.
A brain scan cannot show a chemical imbalance, or anything much else beside a tumor or bleeding. There is no way to check for a "chemical imbalance" and Doctors prescribe antidepressant medication for people only with chronic clinical depression.
Is it possible you have schitzophrenia, and you are obsessing that there must be something wrong with your brain?
Why would you want to? The whole 'chemical imbalance' notion is a total misunderstanding of human psychology. There may indeed be differences in the ways chemicals like cortisol are dealt with by the body in people with eg anxiety, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that the chemicals come first. If we are anxious, cortisol is produced, not the other way round. You might find it interesting to look at a book called "Why Love Matters" by Sue Gerhardt, which explains how an infant's development and production of the mood-related chemicals is related to its experience with its carers.
What I'm saying is that adjusting the chemicals is of no long-term benefit. If you want to sort yourself out, see a psychotherapist. In a very few conditions (eg true bipolar disorder or schizophrenia) there is a biological component to the condition which may need life-long medication, but some people would dispute even that. And even in those cases, the best adjustment will happen by a combination of medication and psychotherapy and in all other cases, psychotherapy wins hands down for long-term change.
You can give your mood-chemicals the greatest boost by eating well and exercising, alongside psychotherapy.
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