Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Drug Development.

Given the merit of high-resolution cross-sectional imaging, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been utilized in many preclinical and clinical research fields. In addition to T2-weighted imaging for assessing anatomic changes by disease and therapeutic agents, diffusion-weighted imaging, dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI, and MR spectroscopy can provide disease- and drug-specific functional information in both in vivo and ex vivo status. Another advantage of MRI is its ability to bridge the preclinical and clinical experiments as it allows similar study methods and environments between animals and humans. Therefore, MRI can be used as a useful tool for drug development. Investigators have discovered a variety of MRI biomarkers that can quantitatively measure the biological alteration led by disease and treatment. In this chapter, a number of commonly used preclinical MRI biomarkers for drug development will be introduced and discussed, particularly being focused on their value for translational research.