Changes of Dorsal Root Ganglion Volume in Dogs with Clinical Signs of Degenerative Myelopathy Detected by Water-Excitation Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Canine degenerative myelopathy (DM) is a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease. However, a definitive diagnosis of DM can only be achieved by postmortem histopathological examination of the spinal cord. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the volumetry of DRG using the ability of water-excitation magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to visualize the DRG in dogs has premortem diagnostic value for DM. Eight dogs with DM, twenty-four dogs with intervertebral disc herniation (IVDH), and eight control dogs were scanned using a 3.0-tesla MRI system, and water-excitation images were obtained to visualize and measure the volume of DRG, normalized by body surface area. The normalized mean DRG volume between each spinal cord segment and mean volume of all DRG between T8 and L2 in the DM group was significantly lower than that in the control and the IVDH groups (P = 0.011, P = 0.002, respectively). There were no correlations within the normalized mean DRG volume between DM stage 1 and stage 4 (rs = 0.312, P = 0.128, respectively). In conclusion, DRG volumetry by the water-excitation MRI provides a non-invasive and quantitative assessment of neurodegeneration in DRG and may have diagnostic potential for DM.

Herschel water maps towards the vicinity of the black hole Sgr A*

Aims. We study the spatial distribution and kinematics of water emission in a ~8 × 8 pc2 region of the Galactic center (GC) that covers the main molecular features around the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). We also analyze the water excitation to derive the physical conditions and water abundances in the circumnuclear disk (CND) and the “quiescent clouds”. Methods. We presented the integrated line intensity maps of the ortho 110 − 101, and para 202 − 111 and 111 − 000 water transitions observed using the On the Fly mapping mode with the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) on board Herschel. To study the water excitation, we used HIFI observations of the ground state ortho and para H218O transitions toward three selected positions in the vicinity of Sgr A*. In our study, we also used dust continuum measurements of the CND, obtained with the Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver (SPIRE) instrument. Using a non-local thermodynamical equilibrium (LTE) radiative transfer code, the water line profiles and dust continuum were modeled, deriving H2O abundances (XH2O), turbulent velocities (V t), and dust temperatures (Td). We also used a rotating ring model to reproduce the CND kinematics represented by the position velocity (PV) diagram derived from para 202 − 111 H2O lines. Results. In our H2O maps we identify the emission associated with known features around Sgr A*: CND, the Western Streamer, and the 20 and 50 km s−1 clouds. The ground-state ortho water maps show absorption structures in the velocity range of [−220,10] km s−1 associated with foreground sources. The PV diagram reveals that the 202 − 111 H2O emission traces the CND also observed in other high-dipole molecules such as SiO, HCN, and CN. Using the non-LTE code, we derive high XH2O of ~(0.1–1.3) × 10−5, V t of 14–23 km s−1 , and Td of 15–45 K for the CND, and the lower XH2O of 4 × 10−8 and V t of 9 km s−1 for the 20 km s−1 cloud. Collisional excitation and dust effects are responsible for the water excitation in the southwest lobe of the CND and the 20 km s−1 cloud, whereas only collisions can account for the water excitation in the northeast lobe of the CND. We propose that the water vapor in the CND is produced by grain sputtering by shocks of 10–20 km s−1, with some contribution of high temperature and cosmic-ray chemistries plus a photon-dominated region chemistry, whereas the low XH2O derived for the 20 km s−1 cloud could be partially a consequence of the water freeze-out on grains.