Investigation of muscle degeneration process in young rats with ischemia injury using MR diffusion tensor imaging

Skeletal muscle is vulnerable to ischemia injury after direct trauma or indirect causes. Magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has been demonstrated to be a powerful tool to investigate muscle structures. However, most previous DTI studies that investigated ischemia muscle were performed on mature species, results of which may not apply on other age populations, such as young groups. In this study, age-related variation of muscle regeneration course after ischemia injury was investigated for the first time. Ten young and ten mature SD rats were induced ischemia in hindlimbs, and the evolutions of the skeletal muscle regeneration were longitudinally studied using DTI before and till 21 days after surgery. Results showed that the young group was more sensitive to ischemia and recovered more rapidly than the mature one. This study confirms the age-related variation of muscle regeneration process, and may provide supplemental information for better understanding of muscle repair evolution.