Home › Analytical Chem › Whole Body and Regional Quantification of Active Human Brown Adipose Tissue Using 18F-FDG PET/CT
Analytical Chem JoVE (Open Access) Citable · DOI

Whole Body and Regional Quantification of Active Human Brown Adipose Tissue Using 18F-FDG PET/CT

DOI: 10.3791/58469-v
What you'll learn
  • ✓ Navigate PET/CT viewer software to load and analyze 18F-FDG imaging data
  • ✓ Quantify whole-body brown adipose tissue volume and metabolic activity
  • ✓ Segment and measure regional BAT depots using open-source tools
Protocol

Using free, open-source software, we have developed an analytical approach to quantify total and regional brown adipose tissue (BAT) volume and metabolic activity of BAT using 18F-FDG PET/CT.

Difficulty
intermediate
Total time
~1–2 hours per subject (image acquisition separate; analysis only)

Steps

1
Navigate PET/CT viewer plug-in interface

Learn to open, load, and display 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging data using free, open-source software. Familiarize yourself with viewer controls and image orientation tools.

▶ 00:36
2
Quantify whole-body brown adipose tissue

Apply analytical thresholds and segmentation to measure total BAT volume and metabolic activity across the entire body using standardized intensity-based criteria.

▶ 02:52
3
Segment BAT into individual anatomical depots

Divide detected BAT into distinct regional depots (e.g., cervical, supraclavicular, thoracic, abdominal) to quantify metabolic activity and volume per region.

▶ 05:13
4
Validate BAT region-of-interest selection and segmentation

Review results showing correctly identified BAT depots and confirm segmentation accuracy against imaging standards and anatomical landmarks.

▶ 08:31
💬 Comments coming soon