Abstract #0913

Quantitative measurement of myelin in distinct pathways of the spinal cord: Implications for assessing neuropathic pain after spinal cord injury

Hanwen Liu^1,2, Emil Ljungberg³, Erin MacMillan³, Laura Barlow⁴, Shannon Kolind³, John Kramer^2,5, and Cornelia Laule^2,6,7

¹Physics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ²International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ³Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ⁴UBC Hospital, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ⁵Kinesiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ⁶Radiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ⁷Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, BC, Canada

Neuropathic pain is common in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). To better understand the type and severity of damage in the spinal cord associated with neuropathic pain, we used myelin water imaging (MWI) combined with spinal cord toolbox to study myelin content in specific pathways of spinal cord for both healthy and SCI subjects. Results show that MWI can distinguish different pathways of spinal cord and reduced myelin content in some specific pathways is found in SCI subjects. Our findings suggest that MWI with pathway-based analysis is capable of examining the correlation between damage pattern and neuropathic pain.

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