Overview

The prevalence of obesity and related metabolic disorders continues to rise worldwide. In both children and adults, magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy have become widely used to quantify not only fat accumulation in adipose tissue depots, organs, and muscles, but also the molecular substrates, products, and dynamic rates of metabolism and biochemical pathways. As a follow-up to the 2012 ISMRM workshop on water-fat MRI held in Long Beach, California, the purpose of this proposed workshop is to bring together and reunite internationally recognized scientists and clinicians who are currently developing and applying advanced MRI and MRS techniques to investigate the causes and consequences of obesity and metabolic dysfunctions.

The meeting will include invited and proffered oral presentations as well as short power-pitch poster sessions. The workshop's schedule will integrate presentations with ample discussion periods covering advances in water-fat Dixon MRI; new applications of relaxometry, diffusion, and elastography; multinuclear applications; pre-clinical animal studies of white, brown, and beige adipose tissue; the epidemiology of insulin resistance, diabetes and obesity; influences of obesity and metabolic disorders in the young; recent findings in liver, heart, pancreas, kidney, muscle, and bone marrow fat; newfound knowledge revealed from large-cohort and population studies; and the implications of genomics and metabolomics in obesity. An open discussion forum on the future directions and research opportunities will also be held.

Target Audience

The program will be designed for both senior investigators and junior scientists. The organizing committee will also emphasize attendance by student members of ISMRM and engage the Asian research community.

Educational Objectives

Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:

• Identify the basic mechanisms of insulin signaling pathways that drive insulin resistance/energy balance and body composition;
• Describe the current state of magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy methods for assessing obesity and metabolic disorders, including applications in body adiposity, organ fat, and muscle fat;
• List recent advances in MRI and MRS technology, including water-fat MRI and X-nuclei methods, for studying obesity and metabolic disorders;
• Describe the imaging applications and of obesity and metabolic disorders in fetal, pediatric, and adult populations;
• Summarize the current multi-parametric imaging of white and brown adipose tissue;
• Recognize the multitude of applications associated with quantitative MRI in obesity and metabolic disorder research;
• Select the most appropriate techniques and design the most suitable protocols based on desired study outcomes and endpoints;
• Articulate and summarize the global health concern regarding obesity and metabolic disorders, and identify how magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy can be used to address unsolved problems and unmet needs; and
• Identify the role that radiomics, metabolomics, genomics, and big-data have in obesity and metabolic disorder studies worldwide.