NEAR-IR AND IR IMAGING IN LIPID-METABOLISM AND OBESITY

Approximately one-third of Americans are classified as obese. There ha s long been an interest in drug therapies for obesity. Interest in obe sity research and in drug interventions in obesity has greatly increas ed since the discovery of a protein named leptin, one of apparently ma ny competing biological signals in energy metabolism. The complexity o f the obesity problem demands new non-invasive and non-destructive met hods for monitoring lipid metabolism and energy expenditure to study t he competing biological signals and their effects. A new computer algo rithm for spectrometric imaging of living subjects is used to remove a rtifacts arising from subject motion from spectra and images. The algo rithm is sufficiently simple to be implemented easily in hardware for real-time video processing. Because the algorithm can be applied to im ages, thermogenesis and lipid metabolism in interscapular adipose tiss ue can be observed directly in unrestrained and unanesthetized subject s using an InSb focal plane array video camera. The accuracy and preci sion of temperature and spectral measurements are established using la boratory references and prototype drugs in test subjects.