HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 105/3/958    most recent 01204.2007v1 Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Nakai, R. Articles by Tsutsumi, S. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Nakai, R. Articles by Tsutsumi, S.

MRI analysis of structural changes in skeletal muscles and surrounding tissues following long-term walking exercise with training equipment

¹Department of Medical Simulation Engineering, Research Center for Nano Medical Engineering, Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University, Kyoto; ²Human Science Research Center, Wacoal, Kyoto; ³Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto; ⁴Medical Solutions Marketing Division, Siemens Asahi Medical Technologies, Tokyo; and ⁵Nihon University School of Dentistry, Tokyo, Japan

Submitted 12 November 2007 ; accepted in final form 26 June 2008

Muscular recovery after exercise is an important topic in sports medicine, and accurate and quantitative measurements of changes in muscle are required to assess muscular recovery. In the present study, we report a new analytical method to measure muscular changes quantitatively. The technique consists of three independent methods: image processing of two-dimensional MR images, morphological analysis using three-dimensional MR images, and diffusion tensor MRI. Using this method, we investigated changes in the quadriceps and biceps femoris and gluteus maximus muscles and surrounding tissues before and after 1 mo of exercise wearing training equipment. The subjects were 21 healthy adult female volunteers, 14 of whom wore training equipment and 7 who wore normal equipment. The percentage of adipose tissue in muscle after exercise in subjects who wore training equipment was on average 4.4% (P < 0.001) lower than that before exercise, and the peak point of the dorsal hip after exercise with use of the equipment was on average 10.8 mm higher than that before exercise. Further, the fractional anisotropy of water diffusion in muscles increased by an average of 0.039 (P < 0.001) after exercise with use of training equipment. In contrast, there was no significant difference before and after exercise in subjects who wore normal equipment. These results show that walking exercise while wearing training equipment thickens and tightens the muscular fiber tissues. This noninvasive measurement approach may allow quantitation of the athletic ability of the muscles, which is not measured conventionally, and is an effective method for analyzing skeletal muscles.

magnetic resonance imaging; image analysis