In vivo, noncontact, real-time, PV[O]H imaging of the immediate local physiological response to spinal cord injury in a rat model.

We report a small exploratory study of a methodology for real-time imaging of chemical and physical changes in spinal cords in the immediate aftermath of a localized contusive injury. One hundred separate experiments involving scanning NIR images, one-dimensional, two-dimensional (2-D), and point measurements, obtained , within a 3  ×  7  mm field, on spinal cords surgically exposed between T9 and T10 revealed differences between injured and healthy cords. The collected raw data, i.