3T Magnetic Resonance Neurography

High-resolution MR Neurography Evaluation of the Cervical Spine at 3 Tesla

The goal of this observational study is to evaluate whether optimized high-resolution MRI can better visualize very fine nerves in the cervical spine and neck region compared to standard MRI. The main question it aims to answer is:

Can high-resolution MRI reliably show small nerves and potentially detect their injuries or diseases that are often invisible on conventional MRI scans?

Participants will come once to Balgrist University Hospital for a one-hour visit. They will fill out a questionnaire and have a single 30-minute MRI scan of the cervical spine without contrast.

Diseases and injuries of the nerves in the area of the cervical spine and neck region are among the most common causes of pain in the neck, shoulder, and arm areas. To clarify the cause of the pain, an MRI examination of the neck region is therefore very often requested in order to visualize the nerves. However, some very fine nerves - in particular the smaller branches of the cervical nerves - are so thin that they can usually only be visualized incompletely or not at all reliably with conventional MRI techniques. As a result, injuries or diseases of some nerves frequently remain undetected, even though these nerves perform important motor functions - for example, the movement of the shoulder, the arm, or (in rare cases) also the diaphragm. Through modified and technically advanced MRI protocols (in particular high-resolution MR neurography), significantly better images can now be generated.

This study therefore investigates whether these special techniques can also clearly depict even very small nerves, so that these techniques can be applied in the future to patients with pathological changes and these changes can be better identified.

Participation involves a single visit to Balgrist University Hospital. The time commitment is one hour. Participants receive oral information about the project, complete a short questionnaire, and subsequently undergo the MRI examination. The time spent in the MRI scanner is approximately 30 minutes.

Inclusion Criteria:

- written consent to agree to participate in this study

Exclusion Criteria:

• <18 years of age
• pregnancy
• known cervical spine pathology or history of neck surgery
• contraindication to perform non-contrast-enhanced MRI