Qualification of the Most Statistically "Sensitive" Diffusion Tensor Imaging Parameters for Detection of Spinal Cord Injury

Qualification of the most statistically "sensitive" diffusion parameters using Magnetic Resonance (MR) Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) of the control and injured spinal cord of a rat in vivo and in vitro after the trauma is reported. Injury was induced in TH12/TH13 level by a controlled "weight-drop". In vitro experiments were performed in a home-built MR microscope, with a 6.4 T magnet, in vivo samples were measured in a 9.4 T/21 horizontal magnet The aim of this work was to find the most effective diffusion parameters which are useful in the statistically significant detection of spinal cord tissue damage. Apparent diffusion tensor (ADT) weighted data measured in vivo and in vitro on control and injured rat spinal cord (RSC) in the transverse planes and analysis of the diffusion anisotropy as a function of many parameters, which allows statisticall expose of the existence of the damage are reported.