"We've taken MRI methods that we've firmly established in the brain, and with a lot of attention to detail and many small improvements, we've made this critical jump to use them in the spinal cord, and I find that pretty exciting,"
"For most of my career I've used fMRI not to look at just neural activity, but also to look at the plumbing, and how the vascular system is supporting the nervous system. This is important for many neurodegenerative diseases because neural and vascular health are so interconnected,"
Functional MRI techniques adapted from brain imaging now enable mapping of spinal cord vascular reactivity to assess how well blood vessels dilate to increase spinal cord blood flow. Impaired spinal cord vascular function contributes to traumatic spinal cord injury and degenerative cervical myelopathy, leading to weakness, numbness, and coordination problems. Accurate measurement of blood supply changes is essential to guide preventive care and treatment. Existing methods have not measured these changes accurately. Combining detailed adaptations and incremental improvements allows application of established brain fMRI methods to spinal cord vascular imaging, improving potential clinical assessment and treatment planning.
Read at News Center
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