About the Authors

Li-Peng Yu

Contributed equally to this work with: Li-Peng Yu, Wen-Wu Qian

Affiliation Department of Spine Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

Wen-Wu Qian

Contributed equally to this work with: Li-Peng Yu, Wen-Wu Qian

Affiliation Department of Orthopedic Surgery, People's Hospital, Gaochun, Jiangsu, China

Guo-Yong Yin

guoyong_submit@sina.com

Affiliation Department of Spine Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

Yong-Xin Ren

Affiliation Department of Spine Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

Zhi-Yi Hu

Affiliation Department of Spine Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: GY LY. Performed the experiments: LY. Analyzed the data: LY. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: YR ZH. Wrote the paper: WQ. Contributed MRI and Clinical data: YR ZH.