Acute effects of exercise on MR imaging of skeletal muscle: concentric vs eccentric actions

Eccentric (lengthening) muscle actions involve the forced lengthening of active muscles. Compared with concentric (shortening) muscle actions subjected to the same relative work load, eccentric actions have lower oxygen consumption requirements, fewer activated motor units, and less lactate production. This study was conducted to determine if T2-weighted MR could show any difference in muscles performing these specific types of actions and, therefore, be useful for physiologic investigations of eccentric and concentric actions. Five subjects performed exhaustive exercise by doing isolated concentric actions (raising a dumbbell, flexing at the elbow) and eccentric muscle actions (lowering a dumbbell, extending the contralateral arm). T2-weighted MR images of the arms were obtained immediately before and after exercise. Muscles that performed concentric actions had increases in signal intensity, whereas muscles that performed eccentric actions showed little or no change. T2 relaxation times increased significantly (p less than .01) in all volunteers, but T2 relaxation times for the muscles that performed concentric actions were significantly higher than those for muscles that performed eccentric actions (p less than .01). Therefore, T2 times increased with both concentric and eccentric actions, but the images failed to show the changes in the muscles that performed the eccentric actions. These data demonstrate that assessment of T2 values can be used to distinguish between muscles that perform concentric actions and those that perform eccentric actions, and this phenomenon may be useful for further physiologic investigations of these specific types of muscle actions.