Brown Adipose Tissue Can Be Activated or Inhibited within an Hour before 18F-FDG Injection: A Preliminary Study with MicroPET

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is emerging as a potential target for treating human obesity. It has been indicated that BAT is rich in innervations of sympathetic nerve control. Using F-18-FDG microPET imaging, this study aims at evaluating how factors related to sympathetic activation/inhibition changed BAT metabolism of mice. BAT F-18-FDG uptake were semiquantitatively evaluated in different groups of mice under temperature (cold or warm stimulus) or pharmacological interventions (norepinephrine, epinephrine, isoprenaline, or propranolol) and were compared with the corresponding controls. It was found that BAT activation can be stimulated by cold exposure (P = 1.96 x 10(-4)), norepinephrine (P = .002), or both (P = 2.19 x 10(-6)) within an hour before F-18-FDG injection and can also be alleviated by warming up (P = .001) or propranolol lavage (P = .027). This preliminary study indicated that BAT function could be evaluated by F-18-FDG PET imaging through short-term interventions, which paved the way for further investigation of the relationship between human obesity and BAT dysfunction.