PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Cho, Zang-Hee AU - Son, Young-Don AU - Kim, Hang-Keun AU - Kim, Nam-Beom AU - Choi, Eun-Jung AU - Lee, Sang-Yoon AU - Chi, Je-Geun AU - Park, Chan-Woong AU - Kim, Young-Bo AU - Ogawa, Seiji TI - Observation of Glucose Metabolism in the Thalamic Nuclei by Fusion PET/MRI AID - 10.2967/jnumed.110.081281 DP - 2011 Mar 01 TA - Journal of Nuclear Medicine PG - 401--404 VI - 52 IP - 3 4099 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/52/3/401.short 4100 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/52/3/401.full SO - J Nucl Med2011 Mar 01; 52 AB - The anatomy of the thalamus and its connectivity with surrounding areas are known. Localized metabolic activities at the thalamic substructural level have not been measured in vivo in human brains because of limited resolution and contrast. Methods: The energy metabolism and fine anatomic structures of the thalamus were measured simultaneously in 5 healthy subjects using a PET/MRI fusion imaging system. Measured metabolism in individual thalamic nuclei was quantified by corresponding PET/MRI images. Results: Substructures of the thalamus were clearly distinguished in 7.0-T MRI images, and the corresponding metabolic activities measured by PET were integrated by the PET/MRI system. The medial dorsal thalamic nucleus consistently showed the highest glucose uptake among the thalamic nuclei. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that substructure-specific metabolic activities in the thalamus can be measured with a PET/MRI system consisting of an ultra-high-resolution PET component and an ultra-high-field MRI component.