Structural and Hemodynamic Mouse Spinal Cord Maturation Assessed by High Resolution Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL).

Virginie Callot¹, Guillaume Duhamel¹, Patrick J. Cozzone¹

The early organization of the spinal cord (SC) gray and white matter is not well described although important for the sensory-motor development. In this work, we performed a preliminary DTI and ASL-based perfusion study on mice, from weanling to young adult age, to investigate whether the MR methods would be sensitive enough to assess evolving structural and hemodynamic patterns. High-resolution quantitative images have been obtained and sensitivity was sufficient to observe evolution of the metrics with time. The capability of measuring non-invasively developmental changes in spinal cord should help as a basis for understanding atypical spine development and spine diseases.