Abstract #1257

Tang H, Wu E, Vasselli J

MRI and image quantitation play an expanding role in modern drug research. With effective image segmentation and analysis methods, in vivo and longitudinal tissue growth can be assessed. The effects of the nandrolone and testosterone steroids on muscle growth have been investigated previously, in which MRI acquisition and analysis protocol were established, and excellent correlations were found between MRI measurement and dissection analyzes. In this study, the MRI protocol was used to evaluate the anabolic potential of 4 steroid precursors. The effects on muscle growth in castrated guinea pigs, in comparison with that of respective positive control steroids were determined.