ISMRM 21st Annual Meeting & Exhibition ○ 20-26 April 2013 ○ Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
SCIENTIFIC SESSION
Spine & Spinal Cord Tuesday 23 April 2013
Room 255 EF | 16:00 - 18:00 | Moderators: | Guillaume Duhamel, Meng Law
16:00 | 0345. | Chronic Low Back Pain Patients Exhibit Distinct Patterns of Increased Resting Cerebral Blood Flow Ashley D. Harris1, Ann M. Taylor2, Judith E. Hall2, and Richard G. Wise1 1CUBRIC, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 2Department of Anaesthetics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom Cerebral blood flow differences between chronic pain patients compared to healthy control was quantified. Regions that displayed significant difference in CBF and that have been previously shown to have difference in functional connectivity were then used as seed regions to examine alterations in connectivity between patients and controls.
16:12 | 0346. | Morphological Standards for the Human Spinal Cord – Validations and Preliminary Applications to Patients Virginie Callot1, Léo Fradet2,3, Jean-Philippe Ranjeva4, Guillaume Duhamel1, Olivier M. Girard4, Pierre-Jean Arnoux2, and Yvan Petit3 1Centre de Résonance Magnétique Biologique et Médicale (CRMBM, UMR 7339), Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France, 2Laboratoire de Biomécanique Appliquée (LBA, UMRT 24), IFSTTAR / Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France, 3Department of Mechanical Engineering, École de technologie superieure, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 4Centre de Résonance Magnétique Biologique et Médicale (CRMBM, UMR 7339), CNRS / Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France The objective of this study was to investigate SC morphological statistical differences (intra/inter-individual, age, sex, postmortem/in vivo) and to provide “invariant” features of the complete in vivo human normal spinal cord that may serve as database for individualized study of SC pathophysiological conditions, either for clinical practice and prognosis evaluation or to establish an accurate model of the SC that will open new perspectives to study compressive mechanisms such as encountered in SC injury or spondylotic myelopathy.
16:24 | 0347. | Quantitative Assessment of the White Matter Damage Following Dorsal Column Transection in Rat Spinal Cord Using Frequency Shift Mapping I-Wen Evan Chen1, Jie Liu2, Wolfram Tetzlaff2,3, Vanessa Wiggermann4, Edenino Hernandez-Torres4, Piotr Kozlowski4,5, and Alexander Rauscher4,5 1MRI Research Center, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 2International Collaboration On Repair Discoveries, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 3Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 4UBC MRI Research Centre, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 5Radiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Tissue microstructure is regarded as a major source of white and gray matter contrast in phase images produced with gradient echo (GE) imaging in the CNS. We investigated frequency shift in excised rat spinal cords with dorsal column transection injury scanned at 7T parallel to main magnetic field B0. Comparing them to corresponding Eriochrome Cyanide (myelin) stained tissue sections, we found strong correlation between myelin and frequency shift both 5mm distal and proximal to injury. These preliminary results suggest GE phase imaging of injured rat spinal cords provides a good model for assessing tissue microstructure contributions to MR frequency shifts.
16:36 | 0348. | Spinal Cord Structural Imaging with Suppressed CSF Signal Using DANTE Pulse Trains Linqing Li1, Yazhuo Kong1, Yuri Zaitsu1, Lucy A.E. Matthews2, and Peter Jezzard1 1FMRIB Centre, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom DANTE pulse trains are rapid series of low flip angle pulses interspersed with gradients. It’s been previously demonstrated during application of DANTE, flowing CSF is largely attenuated relative to static tissue signal is mostly preserved. In this study, multi-contrast CSF-suppressed sequence using DANTE prepared 2D-TSE was implemented and compared to non-prepared 2D-TSE and MEDIC sequences. Preliminary results demonstrate metrics of contrast-to-noise ratio between spinal cord and CSF regions (CNRcord) in DANTE-TSE images is improved by a factor of 2 compared with images acquired with conventional approaches. Sagittal Imaging quality can be significantly improved due to flow-suppression effects from DANTE pluses.
16:48 | 0349. | Perfusion MRI of the Human Cervical Spinal Cord Using Arterial Spin Labeling Olivier M. Girard1, Virginie Callot2, Benjamin Robert3, Patrick J. Cozzone4, and Guillaume Duhamel2 1CRMBM UMR 7339, CNRS / Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France, 2CRMBM UMR 7339, Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France, 3Siemens Healthcare, Saint-Denis, France, 4CRMBM UMR 7339, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France Spinal cord (SC) perfusion is involved in post-traumatic recovery processes and is responsible for secondary injuries, hence it is a critical function to assess and monitor in order to establish correct diagnosis and prognosis of SC injured patients. Preliminary results have been obtained recently, demonstrating the feasibility of Arterial Spin Labeling perfusion imaging on human SC. This report summarizes recent advances in this field. Although the presented methods require more reliability, this work should pave the way to future developments leading to robust SC perfusion measurements, hence providing a valuable clinical tool for SC disease characterization.
17:00 | 0350. | Quantification of Myelin in the Cervical Spinal Cord Using Inhomogeneous Magnetization Transfer Imaging Novena Rangwala1, Gopal Varma1, David Hackney1, and David C. Alsop1 1Department of Radiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States Previous studies proposed a new magnetization transfer (MT)-based contrast mechanism referred to as inhomogeneous magnetization transfer (ihMT) and showed its sensitivity and specificity to myelin. This study extends the ihMT quantification to the brainstem and cervical spinal cord. Sagittal EPI images were acquired after MT saturation to measure myelin content along the length of the spinal cord. Results show ihMT ratios of ~5% in the brain stem, increasing to ~6.5% in the cervical spinal cord at C3, and were consistent across healthy volunteers. Additionally, the images reveal saturation of all tissues except white matter, emphasizing the specificity of the measure.
17:12 | 0351. | FUSS- Fast Ultrashort T2 Sensitive Sodium MRS of the Spinal Cord Bhavana S. Solanky1, Frank Riemer1, Xavier Golay2, and Claudia Angela M. Wheeler-Kingshott1 1NMR Research Unit, Queen Square MS Centre, Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom, 2Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, University College London, London, United Kingdom 23Na-MRS has been suggested for 23Na quantification in the spinal cord using ISIS. However, the inversion pulses of ISIS are typically long hypersecant (HS) pulses. This has implications when dealing with short T2 metabolites such as sodium. Hence the effects of both HS and shorter sinc-guass (SG) pulses are simulated and tested in vivo. Here we present two sequences 1) a Fast HS based pulse sequence and 2) a Fast UltraShort T2 Sensitive ISIS sequence which has the potential to be more sensitive to short T2 components for 23Na quantification in the spinal cord.
17:24 | 0352. | Pool Size Ratio Mapping in the Spine from a Single Magnetization Transfer Measurement Alex K. Smith1,2, Richard D. Dortch2,3, and Seth A. Smith2,3 1Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, 2Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, 3Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States A method to perform qMT in the spine with a single off-resonance measurement was developed. ROIs were chosen in the lateral and dorsal columns of the spine, and in the grey matter. A single measurement model was used to fit the PSR at different off-resonance frequencies and saturation angles. The PSRs from these fits were then compared with the PSR from a full fit model. These results suggest that the PSR can be robustly quantified in healthy cervical spinal cord using only a single off-resonance measurement.
17:36 | 0353. | 7T MRI of the Pathological Spinal Cord Julien Cohen-Adad1, Wei Zhao2, Anne Louise Oaklander3, Merit Cudkowicz3, Nazem Atassi3, and Lawrence L. Wald2,4 1Department of Electrical Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2A.A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States, 3Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States,4Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, MIT, cambridge, MA, United States Recent advances in 7T MRI of the spinal cord yield images of unprecedented quality, with immediate clinical applicability and potential for new scientific understanding. Here we present clinical case studies of 7T MRI applied to spinal cord injury and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. High spatial resolution (0.35 mm in-plane) enabled visualization of abnormalities previously unseen on the clinical scans, such as Wallerian degeneration in the injury case and degeneration of the corticospinal tracts in ALS, thus bringing relevant information to the diagnosis of the two patients.
17:48 | 0354. | Quantitative MR Assessment of Spinal Cord Injury Induced Non-Invasively Using Focused Ultrasound Wendy Oakden1, Meaghan A. O'Reilly2, Margarete K. Akens3,4, Isabelle Aubert5,6, Cari Whyne3,4, Kullervo Hynynen1,2, and Greg J. Stanisz1,2 1Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, 2Imaging Research, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada, 3Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada, 4Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, 5Brain Sciences Research Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada, 6Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada This novel, non-invasive preclinical model uses Focused Ultrasound and microbubbles to create a highly localized injury of the rat spinal cord. The injury caused paralysis of the right hind leg in one of the rats. Quantitative T2 characterization of the injury in vivo, 24 hours following induction, revealed increased intra/extracellular water T2 indicative of inflammation, confirmed using histopathology. Diffusion tensor imaging showed decreased fractional anisotropy. Future work will look at later timepoints to determine if this injury leads to demyelination and determine the potential of this non invasive spinal cord injury model to represent clinically relevant spinal cord pathology.