Abstract
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) methods can non-invasively assess brown adipose tissue (BAT) structure and function. Recently, MRI and MRS have been proposed as a means to differentiate BAT from white adipose tissue (WAT) and to extract morphological and functional information on BAT inaccessible by other means. Specifically, proton MR (1H) techniques, such as proton density fat fraction mapping, diffusion imaging, and intermolecular multiple quantum coherence imaging, have been employed to access BAT microstructure; MR thermometry, relaxometry, and MRI and MRS with 31P, 2H, 13C, and 129Xe have shown to provide complementary information on BAT function. The purpose of the present review is to provide a comprehensive overview of MR imaging and spectroscopy techniques used to detect BAT in rodents and in humans. The present work discusses common challenges of current methods and provides an outlook on possible future directions of using MRI and MRS in BAT studies.
Highlights
Role of Biomedical Imaging in BAT ResearchEven though the presence of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in human adults had been reported back in 1972 [1], its relevance in adult humans has largely been neglected by the scientific and medical community until 2009.In vivo detection of BAT activity in fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) scans dates back to 1996 [2]
The present review introduces briefly the main imaging modalities used to research BAT in rodents and humans
One reason is that MR fat fraction measurements are widely available on clinical scanners, where they are typically employed for estimating fat fraction in organs such as the liver, skeletal muscle, and bone marrow
Summary
In vivo detection of BAT activity in fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) scans dates back to 1996 [2]. The detection of active BAT in adult humans sparked a scientific curiosity only after 2009, when three simultaneous publications in the New England Journal of Medicine [4,5,6] reported that the glucose-avid adipose tissue detected in adult humans on PET/CT scans had been confirmed to be BAT by adipose tissue biopsies and molecular biology analyses [4,5,6]. While for ethical reasons biopsies of human BAT have been limited to mostly cadavers or tissues excised as part of oncological procedures [7], biomedical imaging techniques have enabled us to study the morphology and function of this tissue in vivo
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