Diffusion MRI microstructural models in the cervical spinal cord – Application, normative values, and correlations with histological analysis

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE AND IMPORTANCE Clear cell ependymoma of the spinal cord has not been reported in the literature, although ependymoma in the cerebral and cerebellar hemispheres has been described. We present the first case report of this rare histological type of ependymoma arising in the cervical spinal cord and emphasize the importance of recognizing this histological entity. CLINICAL PRESENTATION A 42-year-old woman presented with numbness in both upper limbs and spastic gait. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed an intramedullary tumor at the C6–T1 level with syringomyelia. INTERVENTION The tumor was totally removed. Histological analysis revealed that the tumor was composed of round cells with perinuclear halos similar to those observed in oligodendroglioma. However, we diagnosed clear cell ependymoma because these tumor cells exhibited epithelial features and ependymal rosettes under light microscopic examination. CONCLUSION Histological diagnosis was crucial to our determining whether to perform postoperative adjuvant therapy in this patient. Neurosurgeons should be aware of the possibility of this histological entity among intramedullary spinal cord tumors.

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Patch2Self denoising of diffusion MRI in the cervical spinal cord improves intra-cord contrast, signal modelling, repeatability, and feature conspicuity

10.1101/2021.10.04.21264389 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Kurt Schilling ◽

Shreyas Fadnavis ◽

Joshua Batson ◽

Mereze Visagie ◽

Anna J.E. Combes ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Spinal Cord ◽

Diffusion Mri ◽

Cervical Spinal Cord ◽

Signal To Noise Ratio ◽

Model Fitting ◽

Denoising Method ◽

Health And Disease ◽

Random Fluctuations ◽

Signal Modelling ◽

Lesion Conspicuity

Quantitative diffusion MRI (dMRI) is a promising technique for evaluating the spinal cord in health and disease. However, low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) can impede interpretation and quantification of these images. The purpose of this study is to evaluate a denoising approach, Patch2Self, to improve the quality, reliability, and accuracy of quantitative diffusion MRI of the spinal cord. Patch2Self is a self-supervised learning-based denoising method that leverages statistical independence of noise to suppress signal components strictly originating from random fluctuations. We conduct three experiments to validate the denoising performance of Patch2Self on clinical-quality, single-shell dMRI acquisitions with a small number of gradient directions: 1) inter-session scan-rescan in healthy volunteers to evaluate enhancements in image contrast and model fitting; 2) repeated intra-session scans in a healthy volunteer to compare signal averaging to Patch2Self; and 3) assessment of spinal cord lesion conspicuity in a multiple sclerosis group. We find that Patch2Self improves intra-cord contrast, signal modeling, SNR, and lesion conspicuity within the spinal cord. This denoising approach holds promise for facilitating reliable diffusion measurements in the spinal cord to investigate biological and pathological processes.

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Fast In Vivo High-Resolution Diffusion MRI of the Human Cervical Spinal Cord Microstructure

IFMBE Proceedings - World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering 2018 ◽

10.1007/978-981-10-9035-6_1 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 3-7 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

René Labounek ◽

Jan Valošek ◽

Jakub Zimolka ◽

Zuzana Piskořová ◽

Tomáš Horák ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Spinal Cord ◽

High Resolution ◽

Diffusion Mri ◽

Cervical Spinal Cord

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Alterations in the number of motoneurons containing immunoreactive calcitonin gene-related peptide(CGRP)& choline acetyltransferase(ChAT) in the cervical spinal cord of the wobbler mouse during the development of the motoneuron disease

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100141226 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 970-971

Author(s):

L. Vacca-Galloway ◽

Y.Q. Zhang ◽

P. Bose ◽

S.H. Zhang

Keyword(s):

Spinal Cord ◽

Early Stage ◽

Cervical Spinal Cord ◽

Wild Type Mouse ◽

Reflex Response ◽

Mouse Strains ◽

Behavioral Tests ◽

Wobbler Mouse ◽

Stage 4 ◽

Stage 1

The Wobbler mouse (wr) has been studied as a model for inherited human motoneuron diseases (MNDs). Using behavioral tests for forelimb power, walking, climbing, and the “clasp-like reflex” response, the progress of the MND can be categorized into early (Stage 1, age 21 days) and late (Stage 4, age 3 months) stages. Age-and sex-matched normal phenotype littermates (NFR/wr) were used as controls (Stage 0), as well as mice from two related wild-type mouse strains: NFR/N and a C57BI/6N. Using behavioral tests, we also detected pre-symptomatic Wobblers at postnatal ages 7 and 14 days. The mice were anesthetized and perfusion-fixed for immunocytochemical (ICC) of CGRP and ChAT in the spinal cord (C3 to C5).Using computerized morphomety (Vidas, Zeiss), the numbers of IR-CGRP labelled motoneurons were significantly lower in 14 day old Wobbler specimens compared with the controls (Fig. 1). The same trend was observed at 21 days (Stage 1) and 3 months (Stage 4). The IR-CGRP-containing motoneurons in the Wobbler specimens declined progressively with age.

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