SPECT and PET imaging in Alzheimer's disease
Date
2018Author
Valotassiou, VarvaraMalamitsi, Julia
Papatriantafyllou, John
Dardiotis, Efthimios
Tsougos, Ioannis
Psimadas, Dimitrios
Alexiou, Sotiria
Hadjigeorgiou, George
Georgoulias, Panagiotis
ISSN
1864-6433Source
Annals of Nuclear MedicineVolume
32Issue
9Pages
583-593Google Scholar check
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder and the most common cause of dementia. Beta-amyloid (Aβ) deposition and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) of abnormal hyperphosphorylated tau protein are the pathological hallmarks of the disease, accompanied by other pathological processes such as microglia activation. Functional and molecular nuclear medicine imaging with single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) techniques provides valuable information about the underlying pathological processes, many years before the appearance of clinical symptoms. Nuclear neuroimaging in AD has made great progress in the past two decades and has extended beyond the traditional role of brain perfusion and glucose metabolism evaluation. Intense efforts in radiopharmaceuticals research have led to the development of various probes able to detect Aβ deposits, tau protein accumulation, microglia activation and neuroinflammation. As a result, SPECT and PET have proposed to serve as biomarkers in recently revised diagnostic clinical criteria for the early diagnosis of AD and the prediction of progression to AD in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) subjects.