基于高场MRI的脊髓损伤诱导胶质细胞/血管活化与大脑可塑性变化关联性研究

脊髓损伤导致破坏性的感觉和运动功能缺失，严重影响病人的生存质量，并给社会造成沉重的经济负担。脊髓损伤后会诱发大脑结构和功能可塑性变化，这些变化对损伤后运动功能恢复产生重大影响。然而，脊髓损伤后大脑可塑性变化的机制尚不清楚。研究提示脊髓损伤后胶质细胞/血管活化可能对大脑可塑性变化起重要作用，但深入的研究还非常少，而且尚缺乏临床神经影像学证据。本项目拟以大鼠脊髓损伤模型为研究对象，利用9.4T高场磁共振血管成像、结构、功能和波谱等技术，结合运动功能评估、病理学方法对损伤后大脑可塑性变化的病理机制进行研究。研究内容包括大脑相关区域可塑性变化的影像/波谱学特征，铁超载对胶质细胞/血管活化的作用，以及可塑性变化影像学特征与运动功能、铁超载和轴突、胶质细胞等病理改变之间的关联。研究结果将为脊髓损伤后大脑可塑性变化的病理研究提供直观的影像学证据，为脊髓损伤临床治疗方法及判断治疗疗效提供重要的实验基础。

Spinal cord injury results in sensory and motor dysfunction below the level of lesion, affects patients’ quality of life and imposes heavy economic costs on society. Injury at spinal cord segment can lead to brain structural and functional plastic changes. Studies show plastic changes play their particularly important roles in recovery of motor function. However, the mechanism underlying brain plasticity after spinal cord injury is unclear. Previous studies suggested activation of glia cells/vessels may play an important role on brain plasticity after spinal cord injury. However, the related research is very little, and lack of clinical imageology evidence. In this project, based on a model of rat spinal cord injury, we propose to investigate pathological mechanism of brain plasticity after spinal cord injury mainly using MR vessel, structural, functional and spectroscopic imaging at high field MRI system (9.4 T), combined with motor function measure scale and histological methods. Specific aims of the projects are: 1) to determine MR imaging/spectroscopic characters of brain plasticity after spinal cord injury, 2) to determine the effects of iron overload on the activation of glial cells/vessels, 3) to determine the correlation between imaging characters, motor function measure, iron overload, and pathological changes such as axonal regeneration, glial activation, etc. after spinal cord injury. The research results will provide clinical research on the pathological mechanism of brain plasticity after spinal cord injury with direct imaging evidence, and lay the foundation for future work related to therapeutic strategies after spinal cord injury.