PURPOSE

Like the brain, the spinal cord contains many sensory and motor pathways that can be visualized with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). The DTI technique measures the self-diffusion, or random thermal motion, of the endogenous water in nerve tissue. Our objective was to evaluate quantitative DTI values of the spinal cord in an older patient population with normal appearing spinal cord and without spinal cord symptoms. METHODS Diffusion tensor measurements of the cervical spinal cord were performed on 17 patients referred for degenerative spinal disease. All patients had a normal appearing spinal cord on MRI and none had clinical spinal cord symptoms. The mean patient age was 50.3 ± 10.8 years (32 – 75 years)