Abstract #2884

Quantitative MRI investigation above a cervical myelopathy in traumatic and non-traumatic spinal cord injury

Maryam Seif^1,2, Gergely David¹, Eveline Huber ¹, Patrick Grabher¹, Markus Hupp¹, Armin Curt¹, and Patrick Freund^1,2,3,4

¹Spinal Cord Injury Center Balgrist, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, ²Department of Neurophysics, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany, ³Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom, ⁴Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom

Traumatic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury (tSCI) and non-traumatic Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy (CSM) present a focal damage to the cervical cord with different time profile. Myelin and axonal loss occurs in SCI and CSM; however, little is known how these neurodegenerative changes are comparable in both groups. Therefore, we applied T2*-weighted and DTI MRI at the cervical cord to compare macro/microstructural changes in CSM and tSCI. While the macrostructural changes were similar in both groups, DTI detected more microstructural changes in SCI. Time-dependent compensatory mechanism in CSM might account for less neurodegeneration and better clinical function compared to tSCI.

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