Xia Research

My background is NMR/MRI physics - quantitative and microscopic imaging. My major research effort at Oakland University has been the studies of cartilage degradation. Our research in cartilage is motivated by the critical role of cartilage degradation in the development of osteoarthritis (OA) and related joint diseases - which affects 33% of the U.S. adult population. My cartilage research has been continuously supported by four 5-year R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since January 1999.

My Lab is truly unique in high-resolution imaging research, since we have five complementary microscopic imaging systems in our lab, with spatial resolutions ranging from a fraction of µm to tens of µm. Each probes different aspects of physical properties in complex systems:

microscopic MRI (µMRI), polarized light microscopy (PLM), Fourier-transform infrared imaging (FTIRI)

microscopic computer tomography (µCT), In situ mechanical imaging system.

We know each instrument thoroughly and have developed quantitative protocols on each system. , We emphasize the correlations among physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, biology, and medicine, using a multi-modality spatially-resolved approach.

Most of our cartilage papers are freely available to download as full-text at PubMed Center, an NIH digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. You can also email me for a reprint. These weblinks have the publication info from our lab:

NIH BioSketch at SciENcv: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/xia_ou/cv/56208/

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=yQKkkJwAAAAJ

My Book and Review Papers on Cartilage Studies by NMR and MRI

Y Xia and K Momot, the Editors of a 24-chapter book titled “Biophysics and Biochemistry of Cartilage by NMR and MRI”, which is a new volume in the series “New Developments in NMR”, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry (Cambridge, UK) in 2016 Nov. (ISBN 978-1-78262-133-1)

Y Xia, “MRI of Articular Cartilage at Microscopic Resolution”, Bone & Joint Research (UK), 2 (1), 9-17 (2013). READ THIS FIRST

Y Xia, "Averaged and Depth-dependent Anisotropy of Articular Cartilage by Microscopic Imaging", Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, 37 (5), 317-327 (2008).

Y Xia, “Editorial: Resolution 'Scaling Law' in MRI of Articular Cartilage”, Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, 15 (4), 363-365 (2007). IMPORTANT

M L Gray, D Burstein, and Y Xia, “Bio-chemical (and functional) imaging of articular cartilage”, Seminars in Musculoskeletal Radiology, 5(4), 329-344 (2001).

Y Xia, "Magic Angle Effect in MRI of Articular Cartilage - A Review", Investigative Radiology, 35 (10), 602-621 (2000).

My Review Papers on NMR and MRI

Y Xia, Chapter 65: "Introduction to Magnetic Resonance" in Spatially Resolved Magnetic Resonance: Methods and Applications in Materials Science, Agriculture and Biomedicine, Ed. B Blumich, P Blumler, R Botto and E Fukushima, VCH, Weinheim, Germany (1998).

Y Xia, "Contrast in NMR Imaging and Microscopy", Concepts in Magnetic Resonance, 8(3), 205-225 (1996).

My Research Interest in Quantitative Flow and Diffusion Imaging (which goes back to my graduate years)

Imaging the Fano Flow (tubeless siphon): In 2002, the tubeless siphon phenomenon (Fano Flow) in polymer flow was investigated using NMR microscopy. The ductless siphon is one of the peculiar flow phenomena that occurs in viscoelastic fluids. A flow system was designed to image the polymer flow in the magnet and the velocity profiles were mapped accurately along the siphon tube at high resolution. See for example, Y Xia and PT Callaghan, "Imaging the velocity profiles in tubeless siphon flow by NMR Microscopy", Journal of Magnetic Resonance, 164, 365-368 (2003).

My MSc and PhD dissertation research were under Sir Paul T. Callaghan at Massey University (New Zealand) and documented in 11 refereed journal papers, including one in Nature (336, 399-402, 1988). My dissertation projects were to develop microscopic magnetic resonance imaging (µMRI) and to study complex molecular motions in fluid flows and vascular flows in live plants. In µMRI of fluid flows, I carried out a number of quantitative imaging experiments to quantitatively construct both velocity and self-diffusion maps in both Newtonian and shear-shinning polymer fluids (including imaging molecular self-diffusion down to 10-14 m2/s). In µMRI of plant vascular flows, I carried out successfully experiments to image both velocity and self-diffusion in several living plants including a single wheat grain, which was the first observation in vivo of water movement on a sub-millimetre scale by non-invasive methods in any biological system (Nature 1988). Most significantly, we were the first to propose the concept of q-space as the reciprocal space for molecular motion, and the combined use of both k-space and q-space in MRI of fluid motion. (The concept of q-space in my projects is the precursor of and mathematically/physically equivalent to Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Diffusion-weighted MRI.)

C F Jenner, Y Xia, C D Eccles and P T Callaghan, "Circulation of water within wheat grain revealed by nuclear magnetic resonance micro-imaging", Nature 336, 399-402 (1988).

P T Callaghan and Y Xia, "Velocity and Diffusion Imaging in Dynamic NMR Microscopy", Journal of Magnetic Resonance 91, 326-352 (1991).

Y Xia and P T Callaghan, "Study of Shear Thinning in High Polymer Solution Using Dynamic NMR Microscopy", Macromolecules 24 (17), 4777-4786 (1991).

Y Xia and P T Callaghan, ""One-Shot" Velocity Microscopy: NMR Imaging of Motion Using a Single Phase-encoding Step", Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 23, 138-153 (1992).

Y Xia, K R Jeffrey and P T Callaghan, "Purpose-designed Probes on their Applications for Dynamic NMR Microscopy in an Electromagnet", Magnetic Resonance Imaging 10, 411-426 (1992).

Y Xia, K R Jeffrey and P T Callaghan, "Imaging Velocity Profiles: Flow Through an Abrupt Contraction and Expansion", AIChE Journal 38 (9), 1408-1420 (1992).

Y Xia, V Sarafis, E O Campbell and P T Callaghan, "Non Invasive Imaging of Water Flow in Plants by NMR Microscopy", Protoplasma 173, 170-176 (1993).

W Kockenberger, J M Pope, Y Xia, K R Jeffrey, E Komor and P T Callaghan, "A non-invasive measurement of phloem and xylem water flow in castor bean seedlings by nuclear magnetic resonance microimaging", Planta, 201, 53-63 (1997).