Severity of spinal cord injury influences diffusion tensor imaging of the brain. J Magn Reson Imaging 2016 Jan;43(1):63-74
Date
06/23/2015Pubmed ID
26094789DOI
10.1002/jmri.24964Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84955640260 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 12 CitationsAbstract
BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to determine whether DTI changes in the brain induced by a thoracic spinal cord injury are sensitive to varying severity of spinal contusion in rats.
METHODS: A control, mild, moderate, or severe contusion injury was administered over the eighth thoracic vertebral level in 32 Sprague-Dawley rats. At 11 weeks postinjury, ex vivo DTI of the brain was performed on a 9.4T Bruker scanner using a pulsed gradient spin-echo sequence.
RESULTS: Mean water diffusion in the internal capsule regions of the brain and pyramid locations of the brainstem were correlated with motor function (r(2) = 0.55). Additionally, there were significant differences between injury severity groups for mean diffusivity and fractional anisotropy at regions associated with the corticospinal tract (P = 0.05).
CONCLUSION: These results indicate that DTI is sensitive to changes in brain tissue as a consequence of thoracic SCI.
Author List
Jirjis MB, Vedantam A, Budde MD, Kalinosky B, Kurpad SN, Schmit BDAuthors
Matthew Budde PhD Associate Professor in the Neurosurgery department at Medical College of WisconsinShekar N. Kurpad MD, PhD Chair, Director, Professor in the Neurosurgery department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Brian Schmit PhD Professor in the Biomedical Engineering department at Marquette University
Aditya Vedantam MD Assistant Professor in the Neurosurgery department at Medical College of Wisconsin
MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AnimalsBrain
Brain Diseases
Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Female
Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted
Rats
Reproducibility of Results
Sensitivity and Specificity
Spinal Cord Injuries
Trauma Severity Indices
