J Scott Bluth1, Lisa C. Loram2, Mark S. Brown3, Kendra M. Hasebroock4, David E. Miller3, Linda R. Watkins2, Natalie J. Serkova4
1UT-Houston Medical School, Houston, TX, United States; 2Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States; 3Radiology, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO, United States; 4Anesthesiology, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO, United States
The goal of the present study was to establish reliable MRI based protocols on rat spinal cord specimens of the MS experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) model. The spines were fixed using 4% formalin (Study I) as well as 4% glutaraldehyde (Study II). The numbers of MRI detected lesions were then correlated with animals motor score. Since the new evidence clearly showed that multiexponential quantitative T2 images (qT2) are the most sensitive for detection of myelination and remyelination, our initial protocols were mostly based on T2-weighted techniques.