BIS Seminar

Bio: Dr. Chuan Huang is an Associate Professor of Radiology and Imaging Sciences and the Director of PET-MRI Research at Emory University School of Medicine. He was named a Distinguished Investigator by the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research in 2023.

Dr. Huang's research focuses on PET/MR and its broader clinical and translational applications. He has authored over 80 publications. Prior to joining Emory in November 2022, he was a tenured Associate Professor of Radiology and Psychiatry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He completed his postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in 2014, where he was subsequently promoted to Instructor.

He previously served as Chair of the ISMRM PET/MR Study Group and was a member of the organizing committee for the 2023 SNMMI-ISMRM co-sponsored PET/MR Workshop. He currently serves on the committee of the ISMRM MR in Psychiatry Study Group.

Abstract: The glymphatic-associated pathway is increasingly recognized as a key mechanism for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-mediated solute clearance, with growing relevance to aging and neurodegenerative disease. Yet, imaging this pathway in humans remains challenging due to its slow and spatially heterogeneous dynamics. In this presentation, I will outline a multimodal imaging strategy combining PET and MRI to improve the characterization and clinical applicability of glymphatic-associated CSF transport metrics.

I will first review limitations of current MRI-based approaches - including phase-contrast MRI, diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), and diffusion tensor imaging along the perivascular space (DTI-ALPS) -which primarily infer fluid dynamics indirectly and may be confounded by other microstructural factors. In contrast, PET imaging enables time-resolved quantification of solute washout, offering a window into net CSF clearance kinetics. I will highlight our recent work applying dynamic 18F-FDG PET to measure ventricular CSF clearance. Together, these tools offer a more integrated and physiologically grounded framework for studying glymphatic-associated dysfunction in human disease.