Spinal Cord Injury in Real Time: Intra-Operative Ultrasound for Acute Phase Examination in Non-Human Primates

A spinal cord contusion injury is among the most clinically relevant models for studying pathophysiology and for developing potential therapeutic interventions for spinal cord injuries (SCI). In this study, we implemented an intra-operative ultrasound (IOU) approach to precisely locate and examine the lesion site at 5 and 10 min post-injury after a cervical hemi-contusion injury in a non-human primate (NHP) model. We assessed acute lesion progression from 5 to 10 min and then compared that to the lesion extent as measured by MRI 3 weeks later. We observed a small increase in the rostrocaudal and mediolateral lesion area (mm2) from 5 to 10 min and a further 26% increase in the mediolateral lesion extent when comparing 5 and 10 min to 3 weeks post-injury. By enabling high-resolution ultrasound visualization of the hemicontusion lesion in vivo, this approach can provide critical insights into the early progression of SCI. It can help with further refining this preclinical SCI model and provide significant predictive value for the animals’ recovery post-injury.