Original Research Article
PET 6-[18F]fluoro-L-m-tyrosine studies of dopaminergic function in human and nonhuman primates
1 Department of Molecular Imaging and Neuroscience, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
2 Department of Neurology, University of California, USA
3 Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, USA
4 Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, USA
2 Department of Neurology, University of California, USA
3 Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, USA
4 Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, USA
Although positron emission tomography (PET) and the aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) tracer 6-[18F]fluoro-L-m-tyrosine (FMT) has been used to assess the integrity of the presynaptic dopamine system in the brain, relatively little has been published in terms of brain FMT uptake values especially for normal human subjects. Twelve normal volunteer subjects were scanned using PET and FMT to determine the range of normal striatal uptake values using Patlak graphical analysis. For comparison, seven adult rhesus monkeys were studied and the data analyzed in the same way. A subset of monkeys that were treated with a unilateral intracarotid artery infusion of the dopamine neurotoxin MPTP showed an 87% decrease in striatal FMT uptake. These findings support the use of PET and FMT to image AADC distribution in both normal and diseased brains using Patlak graphical analysis and tissue input functions.
Keywords: dopamine, FMT, patlak, PET
Copyright: © 2008 Eberling, Bankiewicz, O’Neil and Jagust. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
*Correspondence: Jamie L. Eberling, Department of Molecular Imaging and Neuroscience, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Mail Stop 55-121, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Neurology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. e-mail: jleberling@lbl.gov
Citation: Eberling JL, Bankiewicz KS, O’Neil JP and Jagust WJ (2008) PET 6-[18F]fluoro-L-m-tyrosine studies of dopaminergic function in human and nonhuman primates. Front. Hum. Neurosci. (2007) 1:9. doi:10.3389/neuro.09.009.2007
Received: 20 September 2007; paper pending published: 29 November 2007; accepted: 03 January 2008; published online: 28 March 2008.
Edited by:
Robert T. Knight, University of California Berkeley, USA
Reviewed by:
Russell A. Poldrack, University of California, USA
Hans-Jochen Heinze, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Germany; University of Magdeburg, Germany
Hans-Jochen Heinze, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Germany; University of Magdeburg, Germany
*Correspondence: Jamie L. Eberling, Department of Molecular Imaging and Neuroscience, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Mail Stop 55-121, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Neurology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. e-mail: jleberling@lbl.gov
