title: Monitoring of Short-Term Erythropoietin Therapy in Rats with Acute Spinal Cord Injury Using Manganese-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the short-term outcome of erythropoietin (EPO) therapy in rats with spinal cord injury (SCI) using manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MEMRI).
  
  
  METHODS
  Rats were divided in an EPO and a control group. Laminectomy at Th11 was performed, followed by SCI. MnCl2 was applied into the cisterna magna and functional recovery was examined after injury using BBB-scoring. Then, rats were euthanized and the spinal cord was extracted for MEMRI. Finally, histological analysis was performed and correlated with MEMRI.
  
  
  RESULTS
  EPO-treated animals showed significantly better functional recovery (P = .008, r = .62) and higher mean signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in MEMRI compared to controls for slices 10-13 (P = .017, R(2) = .31) at the level of the lesion epicenter. Functional recovery correlated significantly with higher SNR values, determined using the mean SNR between slices 10 and 13 (P = .047, R(2) = .36). In this region, histology revealed a significantly decreased number of microglia cells and apoptosis in EPO-treated animals.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  MEMRI successfully depicts the therapeutic effect of EPO in early SCI that leads to a significant recovery in rats, a significantly reduced immune response and significantly reduced number of apoptotic cells at the height of the lesion epicenter.
authors.affiliation: Quantitative Imaging-Based Disease Characterization, Department of Radiology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin Thomas
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Freitag
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neural Regeneration, Department of Anatomy, Histology, and Embryology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: Gábor
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Márton
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neural Regeneration, Department of Anatomy, Histology, and Embryology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: Krisztián
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pajer
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Experimental and Clinical Traumatology, Research Center of the AUVA, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hartmann
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Experimental and Clinical Traumatology, Research Center of the AUVA, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Nadja
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Walder
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Experimental and Clinical Traumatology, Research Center of the AUVA, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rossmann
authors.affiliation: Section Disorders of Personality Development, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Parzer
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Experimental and Clinical Traumatology, Research Center of the AUVA, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Heinz
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Redl
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neural Regeneration, Department of Anatomy, Histology, and Embryology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged, Hungary.|Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Experimental and Clinical Traumatology, Research Center of the AUVA, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Antal
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nógrádi
authors.affiliation: Quantitative Imaging-Based Disease Characterization, Department of Radiology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Bram
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Stieltjes
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000818:Animals; D002712:Chlorides; D003287:Contrast Media; D016903:Drug Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004921:Erythropoietin / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D017895:Manganese Compounds; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D002712:Chlorides; D003287:Contrast Media; D017895:Manganese Compounds; D004921:Erythropoietin; C025340:manganese chloride
keywords: EPO; Neuroprotection; apoptosis; inflammation; neuroregeneration; spinal cord injury