ArticleScientific reports2020
The upper cervical spinal cord in ALS assessed by cross-sectional and longitudinal 3T MRI.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Spinal nerves as landmarks for spinal cord segment delineation: cervical cross-sectional area measurement in healthy subjects.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2026Article
- Quantitative cervical cord MRI in spinal muscular atrophy: a sensitive imaging biomarker of disease evolution and treatment.Journal of neurology · 2025Article
- T1-relaxation times along the corticospinal tract as a diagnostic marker in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Frontiers in neuroimaging · 2025Article
- Review
- Association between brain and upper cervical spinal cord atrophy assessed by MRI and disease aggressiveness in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Neuroradiology · 2023Article
- Analysis of brain and spinal MRI measures in a common domain to investigate directional neurodegeneration in motor neuron disease.Journal of neurology · 2023Article
- Cervical spinal cord atrophy in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis across disease stages.Annals of clinical and translational neurology · 2023Article
- Pilot Study on Quantitative Cervical Cord and Muscular MRI in Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Promising Biomarkers of Disease Evolution and Treatment?Frontiers in neurology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The upper cervical spinal cord is measured in a large longitudinal amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) cohort to evaluate its role as a biomarker. Specifically, the cervical spinal cord´s cross-sectional area (CSA) in plane of the segments C1-C3 was measured semi-automatically with T1-weighted 3T MRI sequences in 158 ALS patients and 86 controls. Six-month longitudinal follow-up MRI scans were analyzed in 103 patients. Compared to controls, in ALS there was a significant mean spinal cord atrophy (63.8 mm² vs. 60.8 mm², p = 0.001) which showed a trend towards worsening over time (mean spinal cord CSA decrease from 61.4 mm² to 60.6 mm² after 6 months, p = 0.06). Findings were most pronounced in the caudal segments of the upper cervical spinal cord and in limb-onset ALS. Baseline CSA was related to the revised ALS functional rating scale, disease duration, precentral gyrus thickness and total brain gray matter volume. In conclusion, spinal cord atrophy as assessed in brain MRIs in ALS patients mirrors the extent of overall neurodegeneration and parallels disease severity.
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Registered trials
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