scholarly journals Effects of amphetamine on the human brain opioid system – a positron emission tomography study

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 763-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joar Guterstam ◽  
Nitya Jayaram-Lindström ◽  
Simon Cervenka ◽  
J. James Frost ◽  
Lars Farde ◽  
...  

Abstract Studies in rodents have shown that psychostimulant drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine cause endorphin release in the brain reward system. There is also evidence for the involvement of the opioid system in human psychostimulant dependence. The acute effects of an i.v. psychostimulant drug on the brain opioid system, however, have not yet been investigated in humans. We hypothesized that an i.v. dose of amphetamine as compared to placebo would cause an opioid release in the human brain reward system, measurable as a reduction of the binding potential of the µ-opioid receptor radioligand [11C]carfentanil. Ten healthy young men were examined using positron emission tomography (PET) and [11C]carfentanil in three sessions: at baseline; after placebo; after an i.v. amphetamine dose of 0.3 mg/kg bodyweight. The order of amphetamine and placebo was double-blinded and randomized. PET examinations were performed with a Siemens high resolution research tomograph. Data were analysed with the simplified reference tissue model, applying manually drawn regions of interest for every subject. Using repeated measures analysis of variance, we found no significant differences in [11C]carfentanil binding potential between amphetamine and placebo conditions in any of the investigated brain regions. In contrast to data from rodent studies and a recent study of oral amphetamine administration in humans, an i.v. dose of amphetamine does not cause any acute opioid release in healthy human subjects. The postulated role of the opioid system in mediating the effects of amphetamine needs to be further investigated in animal models of the disease as well as in patient populations.

2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 1807-1816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo M Rusjan ◽  
Alan A Wilson ◽  
Peter M Bloomfield ◽  
Irina Vitcu ◽  
Jeffrey H Meyer ◽  
...  

This article describes the kinetic modeling of [18F]-FEPPA binding to translocator protein 18 kDa in the human brain using high-resolution research tomograph (HRRT) positron emission tomography. Positron emission tomography scans were performed in 12 healthy volunteers for 180 minutes. A two-tissue compartment model (2-CM) provided, with no exception, better fits to the data than a one-tissue model. Estimates of total distribution volume ( VT), specific distribution volume ( VS), and binding potential ( BPND) demonstrated very good identifiability (based on coefficient of variation ( COV)) for all the regions of interest (ROIs) in the gray matter ( COV VT < 7%, COV VS < 8%, COV BPND < 11%). Reduction of the length of the scan to 2 hours is feasible as VS and VT showed only a small bias (6% and 7.5%, respectively). Monte Carlo simulations showed that, even under conditions of a 500% increase in specific binding, the identifiability of VT and VS was still very good with COV<10%, across high-uptake ROIs. The excellent identifiability of VT values obtained from an unconstrained 2-CM with data from a 2-hour scan support the use of VT as an appropriate and feasible outcome measure for [18F]-FEPPA.


2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (9) ◽  
pp. 1096-1112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masanori Ichise ◽  
Jeih-San Liow ◽  
Jian-Qiang Lu ◽  
Akihiro Takano ◽  
Kendra Model ◽  
...  

The authors developed and applied two new linearized reference tissue models for parametric images of binding potential ( BP) and relative delivery ( R1) for [11C]DASB positron emission tomography imaging of serotonin transporters in human brain. The original multilinear reference tissue model (MRTMO) was modified (MRTM) and used to estimate a clearance rate ( k′2) from the cerebellum (reference). Then, the number of parameters was reduced from three (MRTM) to two (MRTM2) by fixing k′2. The resulting BP and R1 estimates were compared with the corresponding nonlinear reference tissue models, SRTM and SRTM2, and one-tissue kinetic analysis (1TKA), for simulated and actual [11C]DASB data. MRTM gave k′2 estimates with little bias (<1%) and small variability (<6%). MRTM2 was effectively identical to SRTM2 and 1TKA, reducing BP bias markedly over MRTMO from 12–70% to 1–4% at the expense of somewhat increased variability. MRTM2 substantially reduced BP variability by a factor of two or three over MRTM or SRTM. MRTM2, SRTM2, and 1TKA had R1 bias <0.3% and variability at least a factor of two lower than MRTM or SRTM. MRTM2 allowed rapid generation of parametric images with the noise reductions consistent with the simulations. Rapid parametric imaging by MRTM2 should be a useful method for human [11C]DASB positron emission tomography studies.


Metallomics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blaine R. Roberts ◽  
Dominic J. Hare ◽  
Catriona A. McLean ◽  
Alison Conquest ◽  
Monica Lind ◽  
...  

Following acute brain injury (<3 hours post-event), cobalt levels in the brain are significantly elevated. This elevation may have important implications for positron emission tomography neuroimaging for assessing brain injury severity.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharna D Jamadar ◽  
Phillip G D Ward ◽  
Emma X Liang ◽  
Edwina R Orchard ◽  
Zhaolin Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract Simultaneous [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography functional magnetic resonance imaging (FDG-PET/fMRI) provides the capacity to image 2 sources of energetic dynamics in the brain—glucose metabolism and the hemodynamic response. fMRI connectivity has been enormously useful for characterizing interactions between distributed brain networks in humans. Metabolic connectivity based on static FDG-PET has been proposed as a biomarker for neurological disease, but FDG-sPET cannot be used to estimate subject-level measures of “connectivity,” only across-subject “covariance.” Here, we applied high-temporal resolution constant infusion functional positron emission tomography (fPET) to measure subject-level metabolic connectivity simultaneously with fMRI connectivity. fPET metabolic connectivity was characterized by frontoparietal connectivity within and between hemispheres. fPET metabolic connectivity showed moderate similarity with fMRI primarily in superior cortex and frontoparietal regions. Significantly, fPET metabolic connectivity showed little similarity with FDG-sPET metabolic covariance, indicating that metabolic brain connectivity is a nonergodic process whereby individual brain connectivity cannot be inferred from group-level metabolic covariance. Our results highlight the complementary strengths of fPET and fMRI in measuring the intrinsic connectivity of the brain and open up the opportunity for novel fundamental studies of human brain connectivity as well as multimodality biomarkers of neurological diseases.


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