Purpose : To evaluate MRI findings of spinal cord according to mechanism in acute cervical spinal injury.Materials and Methods : 25 patients under went MRI within 1 month after acute cervical trauma. Axial T1WI (TR/TE :500/20), gradient-echo (TR/TE : 300/14), sagittal T1WI (TR/TE : 500/20), proton (TR/TE : 2000.20 msec), T2WI(TR/TE : 2000/80) were performed. In 11 pateints,post-enhancement T1WI was done. Change of spinal cord signalintensity on MRI in addition to the presence of abnormal changes of vertebral body, intervertebral disc andparaspinal soft tissue were evaluated. Results : 15 patients had flexion injury, seven had extension injury andthree had injury of unknon mechanism. Twelve patients showed iso-signal intensity on T1WI and high signalintensity on T2WI. Three patients showed low signal intensity on T1WI and high signal intensity on T2WI. Spinalcord hemorrhage occured in 10 patients. We found cord swelling in nine patients and cord compression in 12patients. In nine patients with cord swelling, extent of cord injury was more than one segment of vertebral body.Ligamentous injury, disc injury, soft tissue injury occurred in 16(64%), 17(68%), 15(60%) patients respectively.Vertebral body fracture was found in 17 patients (68%). The levels of fracture were C6(eight patients) and C5(fivepatients) . Conclusion : MRI is valuable in exaluetion of the spinal cord, intervertebral disc, and soft tissuelesions in acute cervical spinal injury. Prognosis is worse in flexion injury than in extension injury, and iswell correlated with cord hemorrhage and lesion extent.