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Diffusion Tensor Imaging: Tool for Tracking Injured Spinal Cord Fibres in Rat

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Abstract

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a severe disorder of the CNS leading to tissue damage and disability. Because it is critical to understand the pathological processes, it is important to find efficient ways to diagnose the severity of injured spinal cord tracts in situ from beginning up to a certain level of recovery following therapeutic interventions. In the current study, we set-up the criteria for diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in order to capture changes of nerve fibre tracts in rat spinal cord compression injury. We tested four DTI parameters, such as fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, axial diffusivity and radial diffusivity at the lesion site, in time course of 7 weeks. Afterwards, we compared DTI data with histological results and locomotor outcomes to examine their consistency and capability of reflecting the lesion development in time. Our data confirm that DTI is a valuable in vivo imaging tool capable to distinguish damaged white matter tracts after mild SCI in rat. Fractional anisotropy showed decreased values for injury site, while the mean diffusivity had higher values, with increased both axial and radial diffusivity in comparison to control subjects. Thus, the combination of DTI parameters can reflect the severity of lesion in time and may correlate with histological evaluation of spared tissue, but not with locomotor recovery following mild injury associated with spontaneous recovery.

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Abbreviations

AD:

Axial diffusivity

BDA:

Biotinylated dextran amine

CST:

Corticospinal tract

DTI:

Diffusion tensor imaging

FA:

Fractional anisotropy

MD:

Mean diffusivity

MRI:

Magnetic resonance imaging

RD:

Radial diffusivity

RT:

Rubrospinal tract

SCI:

Spinal cord injury

WM:

White matter

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Funding

The work was supported by research Grants ERANET-AxonRepair (DC), and APVV 15-0613 (DC), VEGA 2/0146/19, VEGA 2/0135/18, APVV 15-0029 and APVV 15-0077.

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Author notes

  1. Adriana-Natalia Murgoci and Ladislav Baciak have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Neuroimmunology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 845 10, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Adriana-Natalia Murgoci, Veronika Cubinkova, Tomas Smolek & Dasa Cizkova

  2. Central Laboratories, Slovak University of Technology, 812 37, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Ladislav Baciak & Tomas Tvrdik

  3. Institute of Experimental Pharmacology and Toxicology, CEM of the SAS, 841 04, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Ivo Juranek

  4. Department of Anatomy, Histology and Physiology, University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice, Komenského 73, Kosice, 041 81, Slovakia

    Jozef Kafka & Dasa Cizkova

Authors
  1. Adriana-Natalia Murgoci
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  2. Ladislav Baciak
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  3. Veronika Cubinkova
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  4. Tomas Smolek
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  7. Jozef Kafka
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  8. Dasa Cizkova
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Contributions

ANM, DC, VC, LB, TS, IJ have written the paper. ANM, VC, LB, TS, TT, IJ have done the experiments. DC has got financial support to the project. All authors have reviewed and corrected the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dasa Cizkova.

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The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Murgoci, AN., Baciak, L., Cubinkova, V. et al. Diffusion Tensor Imaging: Tool for Tracking Injured Spinal Cord Fibres in Rat. Neurochem Res 45, 180–187 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-019-02801-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-019-02801-9

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