Abstract #1500

Cerebral Hypoxia-Ischemia in Neonates as a Model of Ischemic Injury to Study MR Diagnosis of Descending Corticospinal Tract Degeneration

Sanju Lama¹, Min Qiao², Amy Ng¹, Delphi Barua¹, Dave Kirk¹, Tad Foniok², Ursula Irene Tuor^1,2

¹Experimental Imaging Center and Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada; ²Institute for Biodiagnostics (West), National Research Council, Calgary, AB, Canada

Wallerian degeneration of the descending corticospinal tract (DCST) has been reported as a detection of increased signal intensities in Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) following pediatric stroke. We hypothesized that a neonatal animal model of cerebral hypoxia ischemia and MRI may also detect such MR intensity changes. Seven day old rats were subjected to cerebral hypoxia-ischemia. Following the injury, T2 and DWI increased significantly in ipsilateral regions of the DCST including the cerebral peduncle and internal capsule.This is comparable to observations made clinically indicating the availability of an animal model to investigate details of MR diagnosis of CNS pre/Wallerian degeneration.