Testing Pathological Variation of White Matter Tract in Adult Rats after Severe Spinal Cord Injury with MRI

Figure 3

Structural image of MRI-T2 coronal sections at the lesion core (LC), R5mm, and C5mm segments at each time point after SCI. The variation of spared white matter area percentage over time was observed. (a) T2 images along the horizontal axis taken from the lesion core (LC), R5mm, and C5mm of each time point after SCI. The control rat has a clear boundary between white matter and gray matter at T7-8, gray matter is in an H-shape in the medium signal, white matter in the medium-low signal, and peripheral cerebrospinal fluid in a hyperintensity signal. At 1 day after SCI, a hypointensity signal was observed at the DC of the spinal cord, indicating acute hemorrhage and a blurred boundary between white matter and gray matter. At 3 days after SCI, the hypointensity signal at the lesion core remained, and a larger circle-like hypointensity signal shadow appeared in the region close to the corticospinal tract in the DC of R5mm and C5mm. At 7 days after SCI, a hyperintensity signal appeared in the lesion core (LC), R5mm and C5mm regions, indicating possible edema in these regions. At 14 days after SCI, the abnormal signal shadows shrank in the R5mm and C5mm regions, accompanied by a mixed signal and a clearer boundary between white matter and gray matter. The dotted line indicates spared white matter area. (b) Quantitative analysis of the variation in percentage of spared white matter area in the R5mm, C5mm, and lesion core (LC) regions over time, which is similar to the statistical findings for the morphological changes. Significantly different from the value before SCI: P < 0.05.

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