A holistic visualization for quality of Chinese materia medica: Structural and metabolic visualization by magnetic resonance imaging.

The quality of Chinese materia medica (CMM) is a challenging and focused topic in the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A profound comprehension of the morphology, structure, active constituents, and dynamic changes during the whole process of CMM growth is essential, which needs highly precise contemporary techniques for in-depth elucidation. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a cutting-edge tool integrating the benefits of both nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and imaging technology. With real-time, non-destructive, and detection capabilities, MRI has been previously used for monitoring internal and external structures of plants alongside compounds during physiological processes . Here, factors involved in the holistic quality evaluation of CMMs were investigated. Given the applications of MRI in various plants, several representative CMMs were used as examples to demonstrate a methodology of quality visualization by MRI, embodying holistically monitoring the real-time macroscopic morphology, mesoscopic structure, and microscopic metabolites non-destructively . Taken together, the review not only presents a pioneering application mode for utilizing MRI for CMM quality visualization but also holds promise for advancing the quality control and evaluation of CMMs.