title: Quantifying the internal deformation of the rodent spinal cord during acute spinal cord injury - the validation of a method.
abstract: Visualization and analysis of the rodent spinal cord subject to experimental spinal cord injury (SCI) has almost completely been limited to naked-eye observations, and a single measure of gross spinal cord motion due to injury. This study introduces a novel method which utilizes MRI to quantify the deformation of the rodent spinal cord due to imposed, clinically-relevant injuries - specifically, cervical contusion and dislocation mechanisms. The image registration methods were developed using the Advanced Normalization Tools package, which incorporate rigid, affine and deformable registration steps. The proposed method is validated against a fiducial-based, 'gold-standard' measure of spinal cord tissue motion. The validation analysis yielded accuracy (and precision) values of 62 μm (49 μm), 73 μm (79 μm) and 112 μm (110 μm), for the medio-lateral, dorso-ventral and cranio-caudal directions, respectively. The internal morphological change of the spinal cord has never before been quantified, experimentally. This study demonstrates the capability of this method and its potential for future application to in vivo rodent models of SCI.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Mechanical Engineering , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|b International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bhatnagar
authors.affiliation: b International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|c Department of Zoology , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: b International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|d University of British Columbia MRI Research Centre , Life Sciences Centre, Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yung
authors.affiliation: a Department of Mechanical Engineering , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|b International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|e Department of Orthopaedics , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cripton
authors.affiliation: b International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|d University of British Columbia MRI Research Centre , Life Sciences Centre, Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kozlowski
authors.affiliation: b International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|c Department of Zoology , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Wolfram
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Tetzlaff
authors.affiliation: a Department of Mechanical Engineering , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|b International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|e Department of Orthopaedics , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Oxland
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D057918:Fiducial Markers; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D011846:Radio Waves; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013116:Spinal Cord / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*
keywords: MRI; deformable registration; rodent model; spinal cord injury; validation