Daniel J. Tozer1, Marios C. Yiannakas1, Hugh Kearney1, Claudia A. M. Wheeler-Kingshott1
1NMR Research Unit, Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom
The work presented here shows a method for developing a cervical spinal cord template of healthy controls that can become a future reference for clinical studies. Three axial scans from five subjects were trimmed to retain a volume only 50x50mm2 surrounding the cervical cord. The images were registered and averaged to produce a template, showing details such as the internal grey matter structures. The template presented here will improve with the addition of more healthy subjects. The methodology used here can be retained for group analysis of quantitative imaging, although use in patient studies may require some degree of adaptation.