Scientific publications
Astrogliosis in aging and Parkinson's disease dementia: a new clinical study with 11 C-BU99008 PET
Mohamed A Mohamed 1 , Zhou Zeng 1 2 , Marta Gennaro 1 , Nicholas P Lao-Kaim 1 , Jim F M Myers 1 , Valeria Calsolaro 1 , Grazia Daniela Femminella 1 3 , Robin J Tyacke 1 , Antonio Martin-Bastida 1 4 , Roger N Gunn 1 , David J Nutt 1 , Paul Edison 1 , Paola Piccini 1 , Andreas-Antonios Roussakis 1
Abstract
The role of astrogliosis in the pathology of brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases has recently drawn great attention. Imidazoline-2 binding sites represent a possible target to map the distribution of reactive astrocytes. In this study, we use 11C-BU99008, an imidazoline-2 binding sites-specific PET radioligand, to image reactive astrocytes in vivo in healthy controls and patients with established Parkinson's disease dementia.
Eighteen healthy controls (age: 45-78 years) and six patients with Parkinson's disease dementia (age: 64-77 years) had one 11C-BU99008 PET-CT scan with arterial input function. All subjects underwent one 3 T MRI brain scan to facilitate the analysis of the PET data and to capture individual cerebral atrophy. Regional 11C-BU99008 volumes of distribution were calculated for each subject by the two-tissue compartmental modelling.
Positive correlations between 11C-BU99008 volumes of distribution values and age were found for all tested regions across the brain within healthy controls (P < 0.05); furthermore, multiple regression indicated that aging affects 11C-BU99008 volumes of distribution values in a region-specific manner. Independent samples t-test indicated that there was no significant group difference in 11C-BU99008 volumes of distribution values between Parkinson's disease dementia (n = 6; mean age = 71.97 ± 4.66 years) and older healthy controls (n = 9; mean age = 71.90 ± 5.51 years).
Our data set shows that astrogliosis is common with aging in a region-specific manner. However, in this set-up, 11C-BU99008 PET cannot differentiate patients with Parkinson's disease dementia from healthy controls of similar age.
CITATION Brain Commun. 2022 Aug 18;4(5):fcac199. doi: 10.1093/braincomms/fcac199. eCollection 2022
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