Week 7

During my last week, I was able to segment and analyze the rat tendon MRI scans for T2* values. As I mentioned last week, I used ITK-SNAP for segmentation and a custom MATLAB code for T2* quantification of each pixel in the segmented area. The resulting maps showed mean T2* relaxation times similar to those seen in fresh and frozen rabbit patellar tendons. These results suggest that UTE scans of rat tendons could be used to further investigate tendon injury and healing. Future tests could include comparing T2* values of healthy and diseased tendons. This would be potentially useful in a clinical setting, as there are currently no methods to detect tendon degeneration or healing in vivo. After returning to Ithaca, I will hopefully be able to continue contributing to this work by better characterizing our fatigue loading model of tendinopathy and sending additional rat specimens.

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