Brain and spinal cord changes after spinal cord injury, studied with MRI

AI summary

From the trial's eligibility criteria. Machine-read from the registry text on this page, so it can be wrong. The registry text below and the trial team decide who can take part.

The trial is looking for adults with a spinal cord injury, and healthy people for comparison. Everyone has MRI scans of the brain and spinal cord.

Age

18 to 75 years

Sex

All sexes

Disease stage

Patients: spinal cord injury from an accident or another cause (para- or tetraplegia), from acute (<4 weeks after injury) to chronic (> 6 months after injury). Healthy people can also join.

Main reasons for not taking part

• Any reason you cannot have an MRI scan
• Pregnancy
• Fear of closed spaces (claustrophobia)
• BMI > 40
• Other nerve problems not caused by the spinal cord injury (for healthy people: any nerve illness)

The registry criteria, word for word

Check if you might fit

Answer for yourself. This is not a decision: only the study team can say whether you can take part.

• Are you between 18 and 75 years old?YesNo

What the trial wants to find out

The objective of this study is to better understand the structural and functional changes that the central nervous system (CNS) undergoes following spinal cord injury and how these changes relate to clinical measures. Both macroscopic and microscopic changes of the brain and the spinal cord will be examined in SCI patients and compared to healthy controls. In terms of structural plasticity, we aim to identify MR biomarkers that allow predicting the course of the patient's neurological status and accurately describe the course of the disease and the recovery. Importantly, we aim to investigate which factors scale the patients' symptoms. In terms of functional plasticity, we will combine fMRI with behavioural testing to understand which clinical and behavioural determinants drive functional hand representations in the primary somatosensory and motor cortices to be maintained and which determinants drive reorganisation of functional representations following sensory input loss. We will further investigate the contribution of brainstem reorganisation to plasticity observed at the cortical level and, by doing so, aim to better understand the mechanistic underpinnings of functional reorganisation.

The 2 groups in the trial

• Patients with spinal cord injury

  Treatment: MRI

• Healthy subjects

  Treatment: MRI