Marios C. Yiannakas1, Hugh Kearney1,
Rebecca S. Samson1, Declan T. Chard1, Olga Ciccarelli2,
David H. Miller1, Claudia A. M. Wheeler-Kingshott1
1Neuroinflammation, UCL Institute
of Neurology, London, United Kingdom; 2Brain Repair &
Rehabilitation, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom
Measurements of grey matter and white matter volumes in the cervical spinal cord in-vivo with the use of clinically available MR systems remain technically challenging and highly underestimated, mainly due to signal to noise limitations coupled with the effects of motion. The aim of this pilot study is to present a high resolution imaging protocol that allows tissue specific volumetric measurements in the cervical cord by means of image segmentation and also to report normal tissue specific magnetisation transfer ratio values which may be used as a reference in future investigations of neurological diseases in the cord.