A novel toolkit for motion-robust multi-parametric quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging of human adipose tissue

尽管肥胖对全球健康和社会经济造成严重影响，但使用现有的生物标志物识别患有肥胖相关代谢并发症的风险人群可能是有问题的。此外，生活方式干预在预防所有人肥胖引起的代谢并发症方面可能并不是同样有效。脂肪组织在代谢功能障碍的研究和临床医学中已成为越来越重要的靶点。白色脂肪组织功能障碍在肥胖代谢并发症的发生中起核心作用，棕色脂肪组织被认为是改善肥胖者心脏代谢健康的靶器官。磁共振成像(MRI)越来越被认为是一种流行的代谢表型分析方法，并已被用于评估脂肪组织分布和异位脂肪含量。然而，除了白色脂肪组织的体积和分布之外，人们对如何表征白色脂肪组织的特性知之甚少，而且现有的MR技术在可靠地检测棕色脂肪组织的存在方面存在局限性。此外，脂肪组织MRI受呼吸运动诱发伪影的多种来源的影响，需要高空间分辨率，以前提出的MR参数只能提供有限的信息。本项目的主要目标是开发一个用于运动稳健多参数高分辨率磁共振成像方法的成像工具包，以提高白色和棕色脂肪组织的MRI生物标记物的特异性。本研究计划旨在开发一种运动健壮的多参数磁共振成像方法，用于非侵入性活体体内评估a)内脏和皮下脂肪，以表征白色脂肪组织质量(基于脂肪分数和T2*图)，以及b)锁骨上脂肪组织，用于确定棕色脂肪组织含量(基于动态脂肪分数，T2*和水T2图)。

Despite the severe global health and socioeconomic effects of obesity, the identification of people at risk of developing obesity-related metabolic complications can be problematic using currently available biomarkers. In addition, lifestyle interventions may not be equally effective in preventing the metabolic complications of obesity in all people. Adipose tissue has become an increasingly important target both in research and in clinical medicine of metabolic dysfunction. White adipose tissue dysfunction plays a central role in the incidence of metabolic complications in obesity and brown adipose tissue has been considered as the target organ for the improvement of cardio-metabolic health in persons with obesity. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is increasingly considered a popular approach for metabolic phenotyping and has been used in the evaluation of adipose tissue distribution and ectopic lipid content. Yet, little is known on how to characterize white adipose tissue properties beyond its volume and distribution, and existing MR techniques are limited in reliably detecting the presence of brown adipose tissue. In addition, adipose tissue MRI is affected by numerous sources of respiratory motion-induced artifacts, requires high spatial resolution and previously proposed MR parameters can only deliver limited information. The overarching goal of the present project is to develop an imaging toolkit for motion-robust multi-parametric high-resolution MR imaging methodologies to improve the specificity of the MRI biomarkers of white and brown adipose tissue. The present research program aims to develop a motion-robust multi-parametric MRI methodology for non-invasive in vivo assessment a) of the visceral and subcutaneous adipose for the characterization of white adipose tissue quality (based on fat fraction and T2* mapping) and b) of the supraclavicular adipose tissue for the determination of brown adipose tissue content (based on dynamic fat fraction, T2* and water T2 mapping).