Human lower leg muscles grow asynchronously

Muscle volume must increase substantially during childhood growth to generate the power required to propel the growing body. One unresolved but fundamental question about childhood muscle growth is whether muscles grow at equal rates; that is, if muscles grow in synchrony with each other. In this study, we used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and advances in artificial intelligence methods (deep learning) for medical image segmentation to investigate whether human lower leg muscles grow in synchrony. Muscle volumes were measured in 10 lower leg muscles in 208 typically developing children (eight infants aged less than 3 months and 200 children aged 5 to 15 years). We tested the hypothesis that human lower leg muscles grow synchronously by investigating whether the volume of individual lower leg muscles, expressed as a proportion of total lower leg muscle volume, remains constant with age. There were substantial age-related changes in the relative volume of most muscles in both boys and girls (p < 0.001). This was most evident between birth and five years of age but was still evident after five years. The medial gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, the largest muscles in infancy, grew faster than other muscles in the first five years. The findings demonstrate that muscles in the human lower leg grow asynchronously. This finding may assist early detection of atypical growth and allow targeted muscle-specific interventions to improve the quality of life, particularly for children with neuromotor conditions such as cerebral palsy.

Dynamic three-dimensional imaging of phosphocreatine recovery kinetics in the human lower leg muscles at 3T and 7T: a preliminary study

The rate of phosphocreatine (PCr) resynthesis after physical exercise has been extensively studied with phosphorus (³¹P)-MRS. Previous studies have used small surface coils that were limited to measuring one superficial muscle per experiment. This study focuses on the development and implementation of a spectrally selective three-dimensional turbo spin echo (3D-TSE) sequence at 3T and 7T with temporal resolution of 24 s, using two geometrically identical volume coils. We acquired imaging data of PCr recovery from four healthy volunteers and one diabetic patient, who performed plantar flexions using resistance bands. We segmented the anatomical regions of six different muscles from the lower leg, namely the gastrocnemius [lateral (GL) and medial (GM)], the tibialis [anterior (TA) and posterior (TP)], the soleus (S) and the peroneus (P) and measured the local PCr resynthesis rate constants. During the same examination, we also acquired unlocalized (³¹P-MRS data at a temporal resolution of 6 s. At 3T, the PCr resynthesis rate constants were measured at 25.4 ± 3.7 s [n = 4, mean ± standard deviation (SD)] using the MRS method and 25.6 ± 4.4 s using the MRI method. At 7T, the measured rates were 26.4 ± 3.2 s and 26.2 ± 4.7 s for MRS and MRI. Using our imaging method, we measured the local PCr resynthesis rate constants in six individual muscles of the lower leg (min/max 20.2/31.7 ). The recovery rate constants measured for the diabetic patient were 55.5 s (MRS) and 52.7 s (MRI). The successful implementation of our 3D-method suggests that imaging is possible at both fields with a relatively high spatial resolution (voxel size: 4.2 mL at 3T and 1.6 mL at 7T) using volume coils and that local PCr resynthesis rates can be obtained in a single measurement. The advantage of the imaging method is that it can highlight differences in PCr resynthesis rates between different muscles in a single measurement in order to study spatial gradients of metabolic properties of diseased states for which very little is currently known.