Measurement of Single-Vessel Flow Parameters for Vascular Characterization of Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract

The spatial distribution of blood flow following spinal cord injury (SCI) represents a promising biomarker for improving patient outcomes. This work follows up on a previously reported algorithm, FlowMorph, that enables measurement of blood flow through individual microvessels in the rat spinal cord. Building upon FlowMorph in this study, spinal cord blood flow was quantified pre- and post-injury, and single-vessel changes were related to distance from the injury. Two-dimensional probability densities were calculated using kernel density estimation in order to determine the extent of injury throughout the cord and measure the borders of vascular injury. Using these borders, vessel density and average flow was calculated at the site of injury as well as in the surrounding tissue. Significantly fewer vessels had measurable flow at the site of injury after trauma, and flow in the remaining vessels was highly variable. Further experiments with different injury severities will delineate the effect of injury severity on blood flow. Additionally, experiments with the addition of contrast-enhanced measurements will validate this technique.