Houchun Harry Hu1, Daniel Larry Smith, Jr.
2, Michael I. Goran3, Tim R. Nagy2, Krishna S.
Nayak1
1Electrical Engineering, University of
Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States; 2Nutrition
Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States;
3Preventive Medicine, Pediatrics, Physiology & Biophysics,
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States
The
fat fraction from IDEAL-MRI is used to non-invasively characterize brown
adipose tissue (BAT) in mice. We first
demonstrate the ability to identify various BAT depots with IDEAL. We then demonstrate with IDEAL differences
in BAT between mice that were housed at 19C and 25.5C for three consecutive
weeks. The interscapular BAT fat
fractions in the colder animals were (35.248.6%), in contrast to the warmer
animals (48.460.9%), p<0.01. The two groups exhibited similar gains in body weight, despite
a significant 29% greater food
intake by the 19C animals. These
findings support BATs involvement in thermogenesis and lipid metabolism.