NIH R01 · 2025
Development and validation of age-relative measures of biochemical intervertebral disc health
PROJECT SUMMARY The link between intervertebral disc degeneration and chronic low back pain (cLBP) is widely acknowledged but poorly understood. Emerging evidence suggests that early deficits in disc health increase cLBP risk, but this potentially important association is difficult to study because conventional imaging methods for quantifying disc health are qualitative, subjective, and insensitive to early deficits in disc health. Spin-lock T1ρ MRI, which is sensitive to disc biochemical composition, overcomes this limitation. Indeed, we recently found that T1ρ biomarkers of disc health in cLBP patients were distinct from the normal age-course of disc degeneration in asymptomatic controls.…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.