Budde Lab

Dr. Matthew Budde

The mission of our collaborative research group is to improve care and outcomes for patients with injury and diseases affecting the spinal cord. Our contribution to this goal has focused on developing and employing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a tool to understand spinal cord biology and pathology. MRI is routinely used in the clinical setting for diagnosis and prognosis, and we have used its translational value to bridge the gap between preclinical animal studies and human clinical research.

We have principally focused on two techniques: diffusion and perfusion MRI. Diffusion MRI can be used to detect microscopic damage that is often invisible or difficult to interpret using conventional MRI scans. Using a variety of other experimental methods such as animal studies, histology, and computational simulations helped us develop new diffusion MRI methods to very clearly reveal microscopic damage to the spinal cord. We have recently translated these advances to studies of acute SCI trauma patients. A complementary technique, perfusion MRI, is able to measure blood flow in the spinal cord. Although cord perfusion is believed to be critical to recovery, the technologies available to detect and measure spinal cord perfusion have not been reliable and, therefore, it has not been used routinely. We developed perfusion MRI in preclinical experiments to clearly detect the extent of blood flow deficits and are also actively working to translate the same technology to patients. Collectively, we believe our research will contribute to the discovery of better treatment options available to patients and are grateful to our sources of funding: National Institutes of Health, Department of Veteran’s Affairs, Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, Department of Defense, and MCW Center for Imaging Research.

Ongoing Studies

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Noninvasive Spinal Cord Perfusion Techniques with MRI

This project seeks to develop techniques to monitor perfusion of the spinal cord noninvasively with MRI. Blood flow and perfusion of the injured spinal cord is believed to be an important feature for diagnosis and management of the acutely injured cord, but the ability to detect in patients is limited. This study will first develop and optimize MRI methods for spinal cord perfusion in a preclinical model and relate the detected features with axonal injury and neurologic outcomes. The overarching goal is to improve the care and outcomes in patients with SCI.
Funding: National Institutes of Health

Monitoring Early Acute Therapeutic Responses with MRI in Preclinical Spinal Cord Injury

The goal of this study and its value to spinal cord injury research is to establish a rigorous and clinically-relevant translational paradigm with integrated biomarkers into preclinical therapy testing. We will examine whether acute MRI markers of injury, including diffusion and perfusion MRI, are capable of detecting the effects of proven pharmacologic and surgical therapies in a preclinical model. The overarching goal is to provide clinical management teams and clinical trials with markers to gauge the efficacy of interventions.
Funding: Department of Defense

Advanced MRI of the Injured Human Spinal Cord

This project will utilize advanced MRI markers of spinal cord damage in patients with acute human spinal cord injury with the goal of predicting neurological outcome. SCI is a heterogeneous injury and our prior work in preclinical models demonstrated a specialized type of diffusion MRI that has high sensitivity to axonal injury, the pathological features most associated with neurological dysfunction. The goal of this project is to identify improved diagnostic imaging markers of spinal cord injury and outcomes to improve patient care and refine clinical trials.
Funding: Craig H. Neilsen Foundation and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs.

Differences in spinal cord biomechanics after laminectomy, laminoplasty, and laminectomy with fusion for degenerative cervical myelopathy.

(Vedantam A, Harinathan B, Warraich A, Budde MD, Yoganandan N.) J Neurosurg Spine. 2023 Jul 01;39(1):28-39 PMID: 37029671 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85164233516 04/09/2023
Comparison and optimization of pCASL and VSASL for rat thoracolumbar spinal cord MRI at 9.4 T.

(Lee S, Meyer BP, Hernandez-Garcia L, Kurpad SN, Schmit BD, Budde MD.) Magn Reson Med. 2023 Jun;89(6):2305-2317 PMID: 36744728 PMCID: PMC10050093 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85147533572 02/07/2023
Spinal muscular atrophy-like phenotype in a mouse model of acid ceramidase deficiency.

(Nagree MS, Rybova J, Kleynerman A, Ahrenhoerster CJ, Saville JT, Xu T, Bachochin M, McKillop WM, Lawlor MW, Pshezhetsky AV, Isaeva O, Budde MD, Fuller M, Medin JA.) Commun Biol. 2023 May 25;6(1):560 PMID: 37231125 PMCID: PMC10212955 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85160222255 05/26/2023
Spinal Cord Stress After Anterior Cervical Diskectomy and Fusion: Results from a Patient-Specific Finite Element Model.

(Vedantam A, Purushothaman Y, Harinathan B, Scripp S, Budde MD, Yoganandan N.) Ann Biomed Eng. 2023 May;51(5):1040-1051 PMID: 36538274 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85144374871 12/21/2022
Differential Trajectory of Diffusion and Perfusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Rat Spinal Cord Injury.

(Meyer BP, Lee SY, Kurpad SN, Budde MD.) J Neurotrauma. 2023 May;40(9-10):918-930 PMID: 36226406 PMCID: PMC10150724 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85159154686 10/14/2022
A longitudinal microstructural MRI dataset in healthy C57Bl/6 mice at 9.4 Tesla.

(Rahman N, Xu K, Budde MD, Brown A, Baron CA.) Sci Data. 2023 Feb 14;10(1):94 PMID: 36788251 PMCID: PMC9929084 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85148086939 02/15/2023
Chronicity of repeated blast traumatic brain injury associated increase in oxycodone seeking in rats.

(Chiariello R, McCarthy C, Glaeser BL, Shah AS, Budde MD, Stemper BD, Olsen CM.) Behav Brain Res. 2023 Feb 13;438:114181 PMID: 36330906 PMCID: PMC9993345 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85140915448 11/05/2022
Predictive values of spinal cord diffusion magnetic resonance imaging to characterize outcomes after contusion injury

(Ahmed RU, Medina-Aguinaga D, Adams S, Knibbe CA, Morgan M, Gibson D, Kim Jw, Sharma M, Chopra M, Davison S, Sherwood LC, Negahdar MJ, Bert R, Ugiliweneza B, Hubscher C, Budde MD, Xu J, Boakye M.) Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology. September 2023;10(9):1647-1661 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85165898607 09/01/2023
Diffusion-weighted MRI of the spinal cord in cervical spondylotic myelopathy after instrumented fusion.

(Koch KM, Nencka AS, Klein A, Wang M, Kurpad S, Vedantam A, Budde M.) Front Neurol. 2023;14:1172833 PMID: 37273696 PMCID: PMC10236479 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85161052826 06/05/2023
Determinants of spinal cord stress and strain in degenerative cervical myelopathy: a patient-specific finite element study

(Vedantam A, Harinathan B, Purushothaman Y, Scripp S, Banerjee A, Warraich A, Budde MD, Yoganandan N.) Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology. 2023 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85161620932 01/01/2023
IL-12p40 promotes secondary damage and functional impairment after spinal cord contusional injury.

(Rosas Almanza J, Stehlik KE, Page JJ, Xiong SH, Tabor EG, Aperi B, Patel K, Kodali R, Kurpad S, Budde MD, Tarima S, Swartz K, Kroner A.) J Neurosci Res. 2022 Dec;100(12):2213-2231 PMID: 36089917 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85137752150 09/13/2022
Acute Magnetic Resonance Imaging Predictors of Chronic Motor Function and Tissue Sparing in Rat Cervical Spinal Cord Injury.

(Lee SY, Schmit BD, Kurpad SN, Budde MD.) J Neurotrauma. 2022 Dec;39(23-24):1727-1740 PMID: 35708112 PMCID: PMC9734017 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85144094095 06/17/2022

Budde Lab

Dr. Matthew Budde

Ongoing Studies

Recent Publications