A non-surgical model of cervical spinal cord injury induced with focused ultrasound and microbubbles

BACKGROUND: The most commonly used animal models of spinal cord injury (SCI) involve surgical exposure of the dorsal spinal cord followed by transection, contusion or compression. This high level of invasiveness often requires significant post-operative care and can limit post-operative imaging, as the surgical incision site can interfere with coil placement for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) during the acute phase of SCI. While these models …