Increased cranio-caudal spinal cord oscillations are the cardinal pathophysiological change in degenerative cervical myelopathy.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) is the most common cause of non-traumatic incomplete spinal cord injury, but its pathophysiology is poorly understood. As spinal cord compression observed in standard MRI often fails to explain a patient's status, new diagnostic techniques to assess DCM are one of the research priorities. Minor cardiac-related cranio-caudal oscillations of the cervical spinal cord are observed by phase-contrast MRI (PC-MRI) in healthy controls (HCs), while they become pathologically increased in patients suffering from degenerative cervical myelopathy. Whether transversal oscillations (i.e., anterior-posterior and right-left) also change in DCM patients is not known.

Methods

We assessed spinal cord motion simultaneously in all three spatial

SUBMITTER: Pfender N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10663304 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature