Abstract #0882

Grill R, Hasan K, Deo A, Narayana P

In vivo longitudinal DTI of rat spinal cord injury (SCI) was performed over a period of eight weeks post-injury. The fractional anisotropy (FA) and individual eigenvalues were estimated for the ventral, dorsal, and lateral white matter. In all the three regions, the DTI metrics were observed to be significantly different in injured cords relative to the uninjured controls close to the epicenter of the injury. The spatio-temporal changes in the DTI metrics revealed a region specific recovery pattern. Analysis of the longitudinal and transverse diffusivities suggests the presence of remyelination and demyelination, but not axonal recovery, in injured cord tissue.