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Updated: Nov 12, 2025
Diffusion Imaging in the Rat Cervical Spinal Cord
Published on: April 7, 2015
Diffusion-prepared fast spin echo for artifact-free spinal cord imaging
Seung-Yi Lee1,2, Briana P Meyer1,2, Shekar N Kurpad3
1Neuroscience Doctoral Program, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
Purpose:
Diffusion MRI provides unique contrast important for the detection and examination of pathophysiology after acute neurologic insults, including spinal cord injury. Diffusion weighted imaging of the rodent spinal cord has typically been evaluated with axial EPI readout. However, Diffusion weighted imaging is prone to motion artifacts, whereas EPI is prone to susceptibility artifacts. In the context of acute spinal cord injury, diffusion filtering has previously been shown to improve detection of injury by minimizing the confounding effects of edema. We propose a diffusion-preparation module combined with a rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement readout to minimize artifacts for sagittal imaging.
Methods:
Sprague-Dawley rats with cervical contusion spinal cord injury were scanned at 9.4 Tesla. The sequence optimization included the evaluation of motion-compensated encoding diffusion gradients, gating strategy, and different spinal cord-specific diffusion-weighting schemes.
Results:
A diffusion-prepared rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement achieved high-quality images free from susceptibility artifacts with both second-order motion-compensated encoding and gating necessary for reduction of motion artifacts. Axial diffusivity obtained from the filtered diffusion-encoding scheme had greater lesion-to-healthy tissue contrast (52%) compared to the similar metric from DTI (25%).
Conclusion:
This work demonstrated the feasibility of high-quality diffusion sagittal imaging in the rodent cervical cord with diffusion-prepared relaxation enhancement. The sequence and results are expected to improve injury detection and evaluation in acute spinal cord injury.
Insights
This study introduces a new diffusion MRI technique for rodent spinal cord injury, improving lesion detection. The method minimizes artifacts, enhancing contrast for better injury evaluation.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Imaging
- Neuroscience
- Radiology
Background:
- Diffusion MRI offers critical insights into acute neurological damage, particularly spinal cord injury.
- Traditional diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) using EPI readout in rodent spinal cords suffers from motion and susceptibility artifacts.
- Diffusion filtering can enhance injury detection by mitigating edema effects in acute spinal cord injury.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a novel diffusion-prepared rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement (RARE) sequence for sagittal imaging of the rodent spinal cord.
- To minimize motion and susceptibility artifacts in diffusion MRI of acute spinal cord injury.
- To improve the detection and characterization of spinal cord lesions.
Main Methods:
- Utilized Sprague-Dawley rats with induced cervical contusion spinal cord injury at 9.4 Tesla.
- Optimized the diffusion-prepared RARE sequence, including motion-compensated encoding, gating strategies, and diffusion-weighting schemes.
- Evaluated artifact reduction and lesion-to-healthy tissue contrast compared to conventional DTI.
Main Results:
- The diffusion-prepared RARE sequence produced high-quality sagittal images, free from susceptibility artifacts.
- Second-order motion-compensated encoding and gating effectively reduced motion artifacts.
- Axial diffusivity from the filtered diffusion-encoding scheme showed a 52% improvement in lesion-to-healthy tissue contrast over DTI's 25%.
Conclusions:
- Demonstrated the feasibility of high-quality diffusion sagittal imaging in the rodent cervical spinal cord using diffusion-prepared RARE.
- The developed sequence and findings are anticipated to enhance the detection and evaluation of acute spinal cord injuries.
- This technique holds promise for advancing preclinical research in spinal cord injury.
