Background: Nerve regeneration after an injury should occur in a timely fashion for function to be restored. Current methods cannot monitor regeneration prior to muscle reinnervation. Diffusion tensor imaging has been previously shown to provide quantitative indices after nerve recovery. The goal of this study was to validate the use of this technology following nerve injury via a series of rat sciatic nerve injury/repair studies. Methods: Sprague-Dawley rats were prospectively divided by procedure (sham, crush, or cut/repair) and time points (1, 2, 4, and 12 weeks after surgery). At the appropriate time point, each animal was euthanized and the sciatic nerve was harvested and fixed. Data were obtained using a 7-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging system. For validation, findings were compared to behavioral testing (foot fault asymmetry and sciatic function index) and cross-sectional axonal counting of toluidine blue–stained sections examined under light microscopy. Results: Sixty-three rats were divided into three treatment groups (sham, n = 21; crush, n = 23; and cut/repair, n = 19). Fractional anisotropy was able to differentiate between recovery following sham, crush, and cut/repair injuries as early as 2 weeks (p < 0.05), with more accurate differentiation thereafter. More importantly, the difference in anisotropy between distal and proximal regions recognized animals with successful and failed recoveries according to behavioral analysis, especially at 12 weeks. In addition, diffusion tension imaging–based tractography provided a visual representation of nerve continuity in all treatment groups. Conclusions: Diffuse tensor imaging is an objective and noninvasive tool for monitoring nerve regeneration. Its use could facilitate earlier detection of failed repairs to potentially help improve outcomes.

Nerve regeneration after injury must occur in a timely fashion to restore function. Unfortunately, current methods (e.g., electrophysiology) provide limited information following trauma, resulting in delayed management and suboptimal outcomes. Herein, we evaluated the ability of diffusion MRI to monitor nerve regeneration after injury/repair. Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into three treatment groups (sham = 21, crush = 23, cut/repair = 19) and ex vivo diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) was performed 1–12 weeks post-surgery. Behavioral data showed a distinction between crush and cut/repair nerves at 4 weeks. This was consistent with DTI, which found that thresholds based on the ratio of radial and axial diffusivities (RD/AD = 0.40 ± 0.02) and fractional anisotropy (FA = 0.53 ± 0.01) differentiated crush from cut/repair injuries. By the 12th week, cut/repair nerves whose behavioral data indicated a partial recovery were below the RD/AD threshold (and above the FA threshold), while nerves that did not recover were on the opposite side of each threshold. Additional morphometric analysis indicated that DTI-derived normalized scalar indices report on axon density (RD/AD: r = −0.54, p < 1e-3; FA: r = 0.56, p < 1e-3). Interestingly, higher-order DKI analyses did not improve our ability classify recovery. These findings suggest that DTI may provide promising biomarkers for distinguishing successful/unsuccessful nerve repairs and potentially identify cases that require reoperation.

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