Automated quantification of axonal and myelin changes in contusion, dislocation, and distraction spinal cord injuries: Insights into targeted remyelination and axonal regeneration

• DOI: 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2025.111193
• Publication Date: 2025-01-06T16:40:11Z
• Authors: Xuan Li; Yuan He; Fangyao Chen; Xin Tong; Yunlong Fan; Yuzhe Langzhou; Jie Liu; Kinon Chen
• Keywords: Remyelination; Axonal Degeneration

Quantifying axons and myelin is essential for understanding spinal cord injury (SCI) mechanisms developing targeted therapies. This study proposes validates an automated method to measure myelin, applied compare contusion, dislocation, distraction SCIs in a rat model. Spinal cords were processed stained neurofilament, tubulin, basic protein, with histology images segmented into dorsal, lateral, ventral white matter regions. Custom MATLAB scripts identified through brightness-based object detection shape analysis, followed by iterative dilation process differentiate myelinated from unmyelinated axons. Validation showed high correlation manual counts of total axons, no significant differences between methods. Application this revealed distinct injury-specific changes: dislocation caused the greatest axonal loss, while led lowest myelin-to-axon-area ratio, indicating preserved but severe demyelination. All injuries resulted increased axon diameter decreased myelin-sheath-thickness-to-axon-diameter suggesting disrupted myelination. These results indicate that remyelination therapies may be most effective injuries, where make crucial, regeneration are likely better suited extensive loss. Contusion involving both damage, benefit combination neuroprotective strategies. findings highlight importance tailoring treatments pathophysiological features each SCI type optimize recovery outcomes.