Over the last decades, overwhelming evidence has highlighted the high relevance of neuroinflammation in the majority of neuropsychiatric diseases, including neurodegeneration and aging. Whether neuroinflammation is a culprit or a consequence in any of these conditions is a matter of debate. However, the management of neuroinflammation has become of great relevance in all instances, not just clinically but also in preclinical cases, where an assessment of its relationship within the pathophysiological framework is fundamental to validating animal disease models and to evaluating experimental treatments and disease prognosis.
Neuroinflammation can be elicited as a result of primary injury, for example, demyelination, autoimmune encephalitis, or CNS angiitis, or it can be secondarily prompted by stroke or amyloid deposition as well as pathogen infection, trauma, or immunotoxic compounds. Neuroinflammation has a double outcome; if under biological control, it is a response to protect and repair brain tissue however, if inflammation becomes uncontrolled or prolonged, it can result in severe secondary neuronal damage. It is poorly understood how these two pathways are interlaced. Tools that monitor neuroinflammation in real time are extremely valuable methods to localize and quantify neuroinflammation in relation to tissue prognosis or outcome of therapeutic interventions, in the clinical condition and preclinical setups. Neural imaging of neuroinflammation could serve as an imaging biomarker for clinicians as a decision-making indicator to direct the therapeutic strategy by allowing the researcher to conduct better evaluations of experimental models. Additionally, it could be used to validate targets during drug development and to postulate new hypotheses in finding the biochemical pathways involved in the neuroinflammatory processes.
This Research Topic aims to gather the most recent and relevant research on technology development for tools that monitor neuroinflammation in real-time. In the past, a great deal of effort has been dedicated to nuclear and MR imaging, with the development of TSPO imaging techniques, choline/myo-inositol MRS, and fMRI. However, those techniques are still far from being optimized to monitor intracranial or intraspinal neuroinflammation in most cases. New avenues, not just in these imaging areas, are being approached in other techniques such as optical (luminescent/near-infrared) imaging, ultrasound, and even electro- or magneto-encephalographies, which might offer good strategies for monitoring. Fishing for the development of multimodal approaches should be emphasized in this Research Topic. We wish to provide a comprehensive view of the neuroinflammation detection landscape in various neurological diseases to stimulate essential and needed advances in this field.
The Research Topic will welcome Original Research, Review, Commentary, or Perspective articles on aspects of using, developing, or envisioning any real-time methodology to detect neuroinflammation in clinical or preclinical setups, with special emphasis on multimodality.
- Nuclear Imaging, PET, SPECT, scintigraphy
- Magnetic resonance imaging, DTI, fMRI
- Optical/bioluminescence/fluorescence imaging
- Ultrasound
- Multimodal techniques
Keywords:
neuroinflammation, real-time monitoring, PET, SPECT, scintigraphy, MRI, DTI, fMRI, fluorescence imaging, optical imaging, ultrasound, multimodal imaging, aging, neurodegeneration
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
Over the last decades, overwhelming evidence has highlighted the high relevance of neuroinflammation in the majority of neuropsychiatric diseases, including neurodegeneration and aging. Whether neuroinflammation is a culprit or a consequence in any of these conditions is a matter of debate. However, the management of neuroinflammation has become of great relevance in all instances, not just clinically but also in preclinical cases, where an assessment of its relationship within the pathophysiological framework is fundamental to validating animal disease models and to evaluating experimental treatments and disease prognosis.
Neuroinflammation can be elicited as a result of primary injury, for example, demyelination, autoimmune encephalitis, or CNS angiitis, or it can be secondarily prompted by stroke or amyloid deposition as well as pathogen infection, trauma, or immunotoxic compounds. Neuroinflammation has a double outcome; if under biological control, it is a response to protect and repair brain tissue however, if inflammation becomes uncontrolled or prolonged, it can result in severe secondary neuronal damage. It is poorly understood how these two pathways are interlaced. Tools that monitor neuroinflammation in real time are extremely valuable methods to localize and quantify neuroinflammation in relation to tissue prognosis or outcome of therapeutic interventions, in the clinical condition and preclinical setups. Neural imaging of neuroinflammation could serve as an imaging biomarker for clinicians as a decision-making indicator to direct the therapeutic strategy by allowing the researcher to conduct better evaluations of experimental models. Additionally, it could be used to validate targets during drug development and to postulate new hypotheses in finding the biochemical pathways involved in the neuroinflammatory processes.
This Research Topic aims to gather the most recent and relevant research on technology development for tools that monitor neuroinflammation in real-time. In the past, a great deal of effort has been dedicated to nuclear and MR imaging, with the development of TSPO imaging techniques, choline/myo-inositol MRS, and fMRI. However, those techniques are still far from being optimized to monitor intracranial or intraspinal neuroinflammation in most cases. New avenues, not just in these imaging areas, are being approached in other techniques such as optical (luminescent/near-infrared) imaging, ultrasound, and even electro- or magneto-encephalographies, which might offer good strategies for monitoring. Fishing for the development of multimodal approaches should be emphasized in this Research Topic. We wish to provide a comprehensive view of the neuroinflammation detection landscape in various neurological diseases to stimulate essential and needed advances in this field.
The Research Topic will welcome Original Research, Review, Commentary, or Perspective articles on aspects of using, developing, or envisioning any real-time methodology to detect neuroinflammation in clinical or preclinical setups, with special emphasis on multimodality.
- Nuclear Imaging, PET, SPECT, scintigraphy
- Magnetic resonance imaging, DTI, fMRI
- Optical/bioluminescence/fluorescence imaging
- Ultrasound
- Multimodal techniques
Keywords:
neuroinflammation, real-time monitoring, PET, SPECT, scintigraphy, MRI, DTI, fMRI, fluorescence imaging, optical imaging, ultrasound, multimodal imaging, aging, neurodegeneration
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.