Detection of Coronary Microvascular Dysfunction in Diabetic Mice Using Arterial Spin Labeling Cardiac MRI: A
Qinfang Miao1,2, Yefei Shi3, Bo Li3
1School of Biomedical Engineering & State Key Laboratory of Advanced Medical Materials and Devices, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China.
Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging : JMRI
|March 20, 2026
Summary
Arterial spin labeling cardiac MRI (ASL-MRI) effectively detects coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD) in diabetic mice, outperforming transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) in early disease stages and correlating with microvascular damage.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Imaging
- Diabetic Complications
- Microvascular Research
Background:
- Coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD) significantly contributes to cardiovascular issues in diabetes.
- Noninvasive techniques like ASL-MRI and TTE are used for CMD assessment, but their comparative efficacy is not well-established.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare ASL-MRI and TTE for assessing CMD in type 1 and type 2 diabetic mouse models.
- To correlate functional indices from these imaging techniques with histological evidence of microvascular and myocardial remodeling.
- To investigate early-stage type 2 diabetes (8w-T2DM) for CMD detection.
Main Methods:
- Prospective study involving five groups of C57BL/6J mice (control, T1DM, T2DM, 8w-T2DM, and age-matched controls).
- High-resolution 9.4T MRI using segmented FLASH cine, steady-pulsed labeling ASL, and T1 mapping sequences.
- Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) to measure coronary flow velocity (CFV) and reserve (CFVR) under rest and stress conditions.
- Histological analysis including myocyte area, collagen deposition, and capillary density (IB4).
Main Results:
- ASL-MRI revealed significantly reduced myocardial perfusion reserve (MPR) in T2DM mice at 16 weeks and in early-stage 8w-T2DM mice.
- TTE detected significantly reduced coronary flow velocity reserve (CFVR) only in established T2DM (16 weeks), missing early-stage disease.
- Histological analysis showed decreased capillary density in both 16-week and 8-week T2DM groups.
- MPR derived from ASL-MRI demonstrated a stronger correlation with capillary density (r=0.810) than CFVR from TTE (r=0.673).
Conclusions:
- ASL-MRI is a sensitive tool for detecting CMD in diabetic mouse models.
- ASL-MRI outperforms TTE in identifying early-stage CMD.
- The findings highlight the strong association between ASL-MRI-derived functional indices and histological evidence of microvascular injury in diabetes.
Keywords:
arterial spin labelingcoronary microvascular dysfunctiondiabetes mellitusmultimodal imagingtransthoracic echocardiography
