Abstract #1452

Regional measures of water diffusion associated with impairment in chronic SCI

Ann S Choe^1,2,3, Cristina L Sadowsky^3,4, Seth A Smith^5,6, Peter C.M. van Zijl^1,2, Visar Belegu^3,7, and James J Pekar^1,2

¹Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ²F.M. Kirby Research Center for Functional Brain Imaging, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States, ³International Center for Spinal Cord Injury, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁴Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁵Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, ⁶Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, ⁷Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States

Prior studies have shown that DTI allows for noninvasive assessment of the severity of spinal cord injury (SCI). The present study investigated whether subject-specific demarcation of injury (vs. anatomically-driven ROI placement) could enhance the specificity of diffusion measures, specifically, fractional anisotropy (FA). Results showed that FA averaged over the region inferior to the injury epicenter demonstrated significant associations with impairment, suggesting that FA measures in the region are sensitive to Wallerian degeneration in the descending ventrolateral motor columns. We conclude that in chronic SCI, regional analysis of water diffusion using subject-specific injury demarcation may be more specific to impairment.

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