• Martin Thomas Freitag, Gábor Márton, Krisztián Pajer, Jens Hartmann, Nadja Walder, Markus Rossmann, Peter Parzer, Heinz Redl, Antal Nógrádi, and Bram Stieltjes.
• Quantitative Imaging-Based Disease Characterization, Department of Radiology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.
• J Neuroimaging. 2015 Jul 1; 25 (4): 582-9.

Background And PurposeTo evaluate the short-term outcome of erythropoietin (EPO) therapy in rats with spinal cord injury (SCI) using manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MEMRI).MethodsRats were divided in an EPO and a control group. Laminectomy at Th11 was performed, followed by SCI. MnCl2 was applied into the cisterna magna and functional recovery was examined after injury using BBB-scoring. Then, rats were euthanized and the spinal cord was extracted for MEMRI. Finally, histological analysis was performed and correlated with MEMRI.ResultsEPO-treated animals showed significantly better functional recovery (P = .008, r = .62) and higher mean signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in MEMRI compared to controls for slices 10-13 (P = .017, R(2) = .31) at the level of the lesion epicenter. Functional recovery correlated significantly with higher SNR values, determined using the mean SNR between slices 10 and 13 (P = .047, R(2) = .36). In this region, histology revealed a significantly decreased number of microglia cells and apoptosis in EPO-treated animals.ConclusionMEMRI successfully depicts the therapeutic effect of EPO in early SCI that leads to a significant recovery in rats, a significantly reduced immune response and significantly reduced number of apoptotic cells at the height of the lesion epicenter.Copyright © 2014 by the American Society of Neuroimaging.

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