Noriyuki Tawara1, Osamu Nitta2,
Hironobu Kuruma2, Mamoru Niitsu3, Atsuto Hoshikawa1,
Toru Okuwaki1, Akiyoshi Itoh4
1Department of Sports Medicine, Japan
Institute of Sports Sciences, Tokyo, Japan; 2Department of
Physical Therapy, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan; 3Department
of Radiological Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan; 4NIHON
University, Chiba, Japan
Exercise-induced
muscle activity is essential in sports medicine, especially for the trunk
muscle. MRI can evaluate muscle activity; T2 of exercised muscle increases
compared to that of rested muscle. Previous studies have proposed the muscle
functional MRI (mfMRI), which visualizes muscle activity in enhanced
activated muscle. However, the body parts that can be studied by mfMRI are
limited to the limbs. In order to evaluate trunk muscle activity induced by
exercise, we proposed and verified the feasibility of mfMRI using ultrafast
imaging. This study evaluated the detectability of the slight impact on trunk
muscle activity induced by acute exercises.