Value of Micro-CT for Monitoring Spinal Microvascular Changes after Chronic Spinal Cord Compression

Abstract

Neurological degeneration can occur after compression of the spinal cord. It is widely accepted that spinal cord compression leads to ischemic lesions and ultimately neurological dysfunction due to a narrowed spinal canal. Therefore, an in-depth understanding of the pathogenesis of spinal cord compression injury is required to help develop effective clinical interventions. In the present study, we propose a new method of quantitative 3D micro-CT to observe microvascular events in a chronic spinal cord compression rat model. A total of 36 rats were divided into two groups: sham control group (n = 12) and compressive spinal cord injury group (n = 24). Rats were scarified at four weeks after surgery. In each group, CD34 micro-vessel immunohistochemical staining was performed in half of the animals, while micro-CT scanning was performed in the other half. Microvessel density (MVD) was measured after immunohistochemical staining, while the vascular index (VI) was measured in 3D micro-CT. In comparison with sham control, abnormal somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) can be seen in all 24 cases of the compression group, and VI shows the amount of microvessels reduced consistently and significantly (p < 0.01). A significant correlation is also found between MVD and VI (r = 0.95, p < 0.01). These data suggest that quantitative 3D micro-CT is a sensitive and promising tool for investigating microvascular changes during chronic compressive spinal cord injury.

Three-dimensional alteration of cervical anterior spinal artery and anterior radicular artery in rat model of chronic spinal cord compression by micro-CT

“…Previous research has reported that micro-CT could be used to analyze neurovascular pathology based on 3D vascular network patterns and features in an experimental rat acute spinal cord injury model [13]. In previous study, we also have found that 3D micro-CT is useful for investigating microvascular changes after chronic cervical spinal cord compression [11]. However, it has not yet used to study the quantitative analysis of ASA and ARA in chronic compressive model, which efficiently display the anatomical features and comprehensively evaluate injury of the ASA and ARA.…”

“…Micro-CT can provide a clear visualized 3D image of microvascular network, ASA and ARA [11,13]. In this study, we shed new light on the spatial and temporal changes of ASA and ARA as the change of neural function.…”

“…The double-blind methods were used to evaluate, and the average scores in each group were calculated. In addition, all rats received the SEP test [11,27] before euthanasia at each time point.…”

“…Micro-CT has been used as a powerful tool to explore 3D vascular structure in many specimens [2,11,16,18,23]. And we envisioned that this technique would shed light on the self-recovery of ASA or ARA in rat model of chronic cervical spinal cord compression by presenting vivid 3D vascular images of normal and compressive specimens in different time-point that with neurological functional change.…”

Nondestructive imaging of the internal microstructure of vessels and nerve fibers in rat spinal cord using phase-contrast synchrotron radiation microtomography

“…Recently, various methods, including histopathology, confocal microscopy, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT), have been used to assess the spinal cord condition (Talbott et al, 2015;Long et al, 2014). Immunohistological analysis and confocal microscopy may achieve a higher resolution via the use of specific antibodies directed against tissues and cells (Dong et al, 2008;Li et al, 2011).…”