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t h
E u r o S c i C o n C o n f e r e n c e o n
Neurology & Neurological
Disorders
Journal of Neurology and Neuroscience
ISSN: 2171-6625
J u l y 1 2 - 1 3 , 2 0 1 8
P a r i s , F r a n c e
Neurology 2018
Page 45
T
echniques previously used to investigate damage to vascular and neuronal
networks in neurological disorders suffer fromseveral limitations. In particular,
2D imaging restricts spatial coverage, entails destructive sample preparation,
and may lead to data misinterpretation due to lack of information on the third
dimension. In contrast, recent ex-vivo study in mice demonstrated that imaging by
X-ray phase-contrast tomography (XPCT) enables the study of the 3D distribution
of both vasculature and neuronal networks, without sample sectioning or specific
preparation. We have generated and quantified multiscale XPCT to evaluate
alterations in vascular and neuronal networks at relevant disease phases of the
animal model for multiple sclerosis, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis
(EAE), in affected mice and to understand how treatment with mesenchymal stem
cells (MSC) modifies them. A direct 3D morphological description of EAE lesions
is provided at both vascular and neuronal levels at two different length scales, from
the whole spinal cord up to capillaries and single cell. Such a multi-scale direct
analysis has never been performed to understand EAE pathology and address the
effect of an innovative therapeutic strategy. The results strongly indicate i) a trend
in alteration of themicron vessels and occlusions in the capillaries, an observation
never obtained in tissue without the use of a contrast agent; ii) neuronal alterations
with massive loss of lower motor neurons. Such vascular and neuronal alterations
were considerably reduced in MSC-treated mice. We have also applied XPCT
to the investigation of other neurodegenerative disorders, i.e. Alzheimer and
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and the results will be presented.
Biography
A Cedola completed her PhD degree at the University Joseph
Fourier in Grenoble (France) with an experimental thesis at Eu-
ropean Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). She is currently
permanent Senior Scientist of the National Research Council
(CNR) at Institute of Nanotechnology in Rome. She is enabled
Associate Professor of Experimental Physics. She is responsi-
ble of the X-ray physics group at CNR in Rome; Member of Two
Management Committees of the European Science Foundation
Project COST and Scientific Committee of several international
conferences on physics and X-ray optics. She is in the Editorial
Board of the Journal
Scientific Reports –Nature
, She is currently
principal investigator of the following financed projects: H2020
FET-Open
VOXEL
665207 project. She holds Marie Skłodows-
ka-Curie Individual Fellowship (
BiominAB-3D
). She works on
X-ray imaging, X-ray Phase Contrast Tomography applied to
Biomedical applications. She received several invitation to ple-
nary and talks. She has more than 120 publications with cita-
tions about 1400 citations.
alessia.cedola@cnr.itX-ray phase contrast tomography reveals
early vascular alterations and neuronal
loss in neurological disorders
A. Cedola
1
* I. Bukreeva
1
M. Fratini
1
F. Brun
1
V.
Petrosino
2
C. Venturi
2
M. N. Kerlero de
Rosbo
2
A. Uccelli
2,3
1
Institute of Nanotechnology- CNR, Rome Unit, Rome, Italy
2
Department of Neurosciences, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics,
Maternal and Child Health Unit, University of Genoa & AOU San Marti-
no - IST Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro Genoa, Italy
3
Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Research, University of Genoa, Italy
A. Cedola et al, J Neurol Neurosci 2018, Volume: 9
DOI: 10.21767/2171-6625-C1-007