A study on brown adipose tissue using histogram features from fat fraction maps in modify Dixon technique

Motivation: The recent discovery of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in adults presents new approaches for treating metabolic disorders. Goal(s): Noninvasive methods for distinguishing between BAT and white adipose tissue (WAT) are still under the exploration. Approach: In this study, histogram features of human BAT and WAT were extracted using fat fraction (FF) maps that generated from the modified Dixon (mDIXON) technique. The features were subsequently analyzed and differentiated between the two types of adipose tissue. Results: The results indicated that 16 out of 18 extracted features were statistically significant. Furthermore, in the reproducibility study, four features exhibited strong reproducibility. Impact: This study demonstrated the feasibility of differentiating BAT and WAT by using noninvasive MRI approach. The mDIXON technique allows for BAT's quantification, providing a convenient way for researching BAT's correlation with certain metabolic disorders.