Ma X, et al. - Authors gauged the association between spinal cord microstructures and spinal cord dysfunction in degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) patients; a follow-up study was carried out using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI), an advanced diffusion model. For evaluating spinal cord function, DTI and NODDI are valuable; as seen in the results of t test and correlation with modified Japanese Orthopedic Association (mJOA). The results of NODDI demonstrated that decreased neurite density, and not increased orientation dispersion, could be the reason for fractional anisotropy (FA) reduction in DCM.