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Aldo Spallone

Neurological Centre of Latium, Italy

Presentation Title:

Diffusion tensor imaging at II days after experimental spinal cord injury on rat accurately predicts long-term locomotor function recovery

Abstract

Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is still one of the most challenging problems in neurosurgical practice. One of the major obstacles to neural regeneration following trauma is the formation of glial scarring and post-traumatic cysts which acts against proper growth of axons through the site of injury. Accurate and timely diagnosis of the severity of SCI must be carried out as quickly as possible to allow time for drug and therapy testing in the early stages after injury.

Male Dark Agouti (DA) rats underwent spinal cord cryoinjury at the T13 level of the spine. Under typical conditions, in vivo Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) T2 and Echo-Planar Imaging – Diffusion Tensor Imaging (EPI-DTI) examinations were conducted. This involved the reconstruction of nerve tracts and the measurement of the Fractional Anisotropy (FA) index, as well as measurements of the ratio of Hyper/Hypo intensive areas and spinal cord injury severity scores.

Our study shows that, after cryoinjury, the FA significantly decreased in all animals. An increase in FA level, derived from EPIDTI within 2 days after SCI, accurately predicts long-term locomotor function recovery. In rats with higher FA, recorded on day 2 after injury, complete restoration of locomotor function was observed, while at low FA values, the animals maintained stable monoplegia.

Our results, though validating the T2 10-grade MRI scale for SCI, indicate that FA would represent the MRI technical instrument, which would better monitor the evolution of SCI and, accordingly, better objectively evaluate the impact of potentially therapeutic protocols for spinal cord traumatic injury.

Despite the results achieved, significant difficulties must be overcome on the way to successful clinical implementation of the findings in humans.

Biography

Aldo Spallone has extensive experience in neurosurgery. He headed the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the Lazio Neurological Center in Rome, worked in London (United Kingdom), New York (USA), Havana (Cuba) and in Moscow at the National Medical Research Center of Neurosurgery named after Academician N.Burdenko under the guidance of Alexander Konovalov, Chief Neurosurgeon of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, He is a president of the Association of Neurosurgeons of Russia, Vice-President of the World Federation and the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies. He is a member of the American Association of Neurosurgeons, the European Society of Neurosurgery and the Italian Society of Neurosurgery. He is the author of more than 150 scientific articles published in leading international journals, 118 of which in Scopus. H-Index 22 at Scopus, 29 at Google Scholar, acted as lead speaker at more than 80 international conferences and conducted more than 4,500 neurosurgical operations as a surgeon.