ATTENTION/WARNING - NE PAS DÉPOSER ICI/DO NOT SUBMIT HERE

Ceci est la version de TEST de DIAL.mem. Veuillez ne pas soumettre votre mémoire sur ce site mais bien à l'URL suivante: 'https://thesis.dial.uclouvain.be'.
This is the TEST version of DIAL.mem. Please use the following URL to submit your master thesis: 'https://thesis.dial.uclouvain.be'.
 

Post-mortem characterization of human spinal cord morphometric landmarks and individual segments

Nunès, Anthony
(2021)

Files

NUNES_Anthony_41011700_2020-2021.pdf
  • UCLouvain restricted access
  • Adobe PDF
  • 629.17 KB

Details

Supervisors
Jankovski, Aleksandar ; Behets Wydemans, Catherine
Faculty
Faculté des sciences de la motricité
Degree label
Master [60] en kinésithérapie et réadaptation
Abstract
Objectives: The location of the spinal cord (SC) segments in patients is currently based on the adjacent vertebrae and remains evasive. The aim of this study is to elaborate a comprehensive morphometric dataset allowing SC segment localization on MRI, thereby allowing identification of damaged levels and targeted procedures such as SC stimulation. Materials and Methods: we dissected and removed the SC from 18 female and 14 male (88±8.2 and 82±8.3 years old, respectively) caucasian bodies. On each SC, we delimited each individual segment. Anterior and posterior length, thickness and width, were measured by two examiners. An ICC test, T-test (to compare the average of two samples) and Pearson test (for correlation) were used to analyse the data, with Sigmaplot software. Results: Female whole SC length was significantly shorter than male. Statistical analysis of lengths widths and thicknesses allow the identifications of a subset of SC segments. The cranial (C4) and caudal (T1/T2) limits of the cervical enlargement as well as its maximal width (C6-C7) are identified using a combination of widths and thicknesses. The thoracic region from T2 to T12 can also be identified using widths and thicknesses values. The length of the lumbo-sacral region from L2 to S5 is particularly stable irrespective from SC length and gender. Only thicknesses highlight the lumbar enlargement between L2 and S1 culminating in L3-L4-L5. Finally, from S2 to S5, widths equal thicknesses and both decrease from 1mm/segment. Conclusions: Thorough morphometrical analysis of dissected human SC provided a robust dataset allowing statistical analysis of segmental measures. A combined approach using mostly widths and thicknesses provides landmarks allowing the location of subsets of SC segments of potential interest in a standard clinical MRI setting