Estimating the cold-induced brown adipose tissue glucose uptake rate measured by 18F-FDG PET using infrared thermography and water-fat separated MRI

Jonathan Andersson,Mark Lubberink,Mathias Engström,Håkan Ahlström,Elin Lundström,Joel Kullberg

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-48879-7

Jonathan Andersson, Mark Lubberink + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-48879-7

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Abstract

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) expends chemical energy to produce heat, which makes it a potential therapeutic target for combating metabolic dysfunction and overweight/obesity by increasing its metabolic activity. The most well-established method for measuring BAT metabolic activity is glucose uptake rate (GUR) measured using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET). However, this is expensive and exposes the subjects to potentially harmful radiation. Cheaper and safer methods are warranted for large-scale or longitudinal studies. Potential alternatives include infrared thermography (IRT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The aim of this study was to evaluate and further develop these techniques. Twelve healthy adult subjects were studied. The BAT GUR was measured using 18F-FDG PET during individualized cooling. The temperatures of the supraclavicular fossae and a control region were measured using IRT during a simple cooling protocol. The fat fraction and effective transverse relaxation rate of BAT were measured using MRI without any cooling intervention. Simple and multiple linear regressions were employed to evaluate how well the MRI and IRT measurements could estimate the GUR. Results showed that both IRT and MRI measurements correlated with the GUR. This suggest that these measurements may be suitable for estimating the cold-induced BAT GUR in future studies.

Highlights

The negative correlations between paranasal region (PNR) temperature and total cold-induced Brown adipose tissue (BAT) metabolic activity might be explained by a reduced blood flow to the PNR during cooling, which serves to minimize the heat loss through the skin and is a defence mechanism against cold
The simple linear regressions with SCFcold and BAT FF15e as independent variables are shown as graphs in Fig. 5a,b, respectively
We have shown that it is possible to estimate BAT metabolic activity during individualized cooling, measured as total glucose uptake rate (GUR) using 18F-FDG positron emission tomography (PET), both using infrared thermography (IRT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measurements

Summary

Introduction

The negative correlations between PNR temperature and total cold-induced BAT metabolic activity might be explained by a reduced blood flow to the PNR during cooling, which serves to minimize the heat loss through the skin and is a defence mechanism against cold. It should be noted that in[15] a significant correlation was obtained, after adjusting for body weight and duration of cold exposure, despite estimating BAT metabolic activity using standardized uptake value Most of these studies[16,17,18,19] had in common that individualized cooling was performed using a vest or similar, as in this study. The multi-echo MRI measurements only covered parts of the BAT depots, mainly the cervical, supraclavicular, and axillary depots, while the dual-echo and the PET scan covered a larger volume, still not all parts of all BAT depots Despite this both IRT and both multi- and dual-echo MRI measurements did correlate with the cold-induced BAT metabolic activity. This may limit how well these measurements may predict the cold-induced BAT metabolic activity

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