Characterizing active and inactive brown adipose tissue in adult humans using PET-CT and MR imaging

Abstract

Gifford A, Towse TF, Walker RC, Avison MJ, Welch EB. Characterizing active and inactive brown adipose tissue in adult humans using PET-CT and MR imaging.

A pilot study on the correlation between fat fraction values and glucose uptake values in supraclavicular fat by simultaneous PET/MRI

“…However, when looking at the magnitude of change in tissue FF, the value is quite accurate for tissues with FF lower than 40%, whereas the magnitude can be underestimated by as much as 66% in tissues with a FF higher than 40%. This could produce misleading results because the change in FF during stimulation of thermogenic activity observed here and by other authors is only 2% to 4% .…”

Mapping brown adipose tissue based on fat water fraction provided by Z‐spectral imaging

“…In fact, we already mentioned how PET may have biases in the detection of active BAT and is virtually insensitive to inactive BAT(11,12). In addition, we feel that the comparison of FWF data with fat fractions derived geometrically (in phantoms) or from Dixon MRI ( in vivo ) sufficiently validates the ZSI strategy.…”

“…However, it has been shown that 18 F-FDG uptake can be fully maintained even when oxygen consumption and BAT thermogenesis are diminished, suggesting that increased BAT 18 F-FDG uptake can occur independently of thermal function(11). Also, PET radiation exposure limits its application to longitudinal studies necessary for treatment assessment, and can only detect active BAT function, while it is unusable for measuring the resting-state BAT mass(12). …”

Phytochemicals as novel agents for the induction of browning in white adipose tissue

“…BAT plays a pivotal role in protecting animals from hypothermia and is used during the periods of hibernation. It has long been known that BAT is present in newborns, but a number of recent studies conducted through the combined utilization of 18-FDG PET and CT show that human adults do have brown fat [14, 15] paving way to a new area in research relating to metabolic and obesity therapies [16]. The functional properties of BAT that makes it different from WAT mainly come from the lack of a large, unilocular lipid droplet and the presence of numerous mitochondria which allows for the production of energy.…”