It is a non invasive procedure, which takes approximately three hours of your time. You go to the facility that is going to perform the scan and you are given something to drink and you have to wait about an hour. You go to the room where the scan will be performed, it takes about 45 minutes or so to do it. They can actually see in your brain if you are losing dopamine, which is a major clue of Parkinson’s. My results came back that yes I was losing dopamine and that I have Parkinson’s. There is no pain involved in this procedure.

Hello Brian1141. I had a DATScan last month. When you arrive for your DATScan, they give you an injection of Radioactive material, then you wait for three hours. Then they perform the actual DATScan, which is similar to an MRI. That part of the test takes about 30 minutes. It looks at how well your brain is up taking dopamine! I was diagnosed with Essential Tremors for 9 years. This test confirmed I have Parkinson’s!