PET method offers new insight into inflammation of the brain
Researchers have developed a novel method for analyzing inflammation of the brain via PET imaging.
The team targeted the cyclooxygenase-2, or COX-2, enzyme, which is believed to play a prominent role in inflammation by converting arachidonic acid into prostaglandins. It also becomes significantly upregulated by inflammatory stimuli and neuroexcitation, making it an ideal enzyme to target with radiotracers on PET imaging. In doing so, experts were able to visualize neural inflammation in humans like never before.
They shared their findings this week in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
“While COX-2 has been widely studied in peripheral inflammation, its role in neuroinflammation has been difficult to quantify in vivo,” Robert B. Innis, MD, PhD, senior investigator in the Molecular Imaging Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues noted. “We sought to establish a non-invasive imaging method to measure COX-2 in the living brain to enable earlier disease detection, monitor disease progression, and assess anti-inflammatory treatments.”
For their work, the team tested the ability of radiotracer 11C-MC1 to measure COX-2 levels in the brain. After achieving success in rat models, the group conducted a similar analysis in 27 human subjects. The radiotracer successfully crossed the blood-brain barrier and bound to the target of interest, achieving high specificity for the human COX-2 enzyme.
The method was found to be both safe and effective. If further validated, the group is hopeful that their technique could improve the diagnosis and management of conditions known to be associated with neural inflammation.
“Neuroinflammation plays a critical role in many neurological and psychiatric diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and major depressive disorder,” the authors noted. “This could be a game-changer for personalized medicine and therapeutic development. It also demonstrates the potential for developing other PET tracers to investigate neuroinflammation, broadening the applications of nuclear medicine in neurology and psychiatry.”
Learn more about the findings here.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.