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EJNMMI Research
Published in: EJNMMI Research 1/2013

Open Access 01-12-2013 | Original research

Concordance between in vivo and postmortem measurements of cholinergic denervation in rats using PET with [18F]FEOBV and choline acetyltransferase immunochemistry

Authors: Maxime J Parent, Marilyn Cyr, Antonio Aliaga, Alexey Kostikov, Esther Schirrmacher, Jean-Paul Soucy, Naguib Mechawar, Pedro Rosa-Neto, Marc-Andre Bedard

Published in: EJNMMI Research | Issue 1/2013

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Abstract

Background

Fluorine-18 fluoroethoxybenzovesamicol ([18F]FEOBV) is a radioligand for the selective imaging of the vesicular acetylcholine transporter with positron emission tomography (PET). The current study demonstrates that pathological cortical cholinergic deafferentation can be quantified in vivo with [18F]FEOBV PET, yielding analogous results to postmortem histological techniques.

Methods

Fifteen male rats (3 months old) underwent a cerebral infusion of 192 IgG-saporin at the level of the nucleus basalis magnocellularis. They were scanned using [18F]FEOBV PET, then sacrificed, and their brain tissues collected for immunostaining and quantification of cholinergic denervation using optical density (OD).

Results

For both PET binding and postmortem OD, the highest losses were found in the cortical areas, with the highest reductions in the orbitofrontal, sensorimotor, and cingulate cortices. In addition, OD quantification in the affected areas accurately predicts [18F]FEOBV uptake in the same regions when regressed linearly.

Conclusions

These findings support [18F]FEOBV as a reliable imaging agent for eventual use in human neurodegenerative conditions in which cholinergic losses are an important aspect.
Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Concordance between in vivo and postmortem measurements of cholinergic denervation in rats using PET with [18F]FEOBV and choline acetyltransferase immunochemistry
Authors
Maxime J Parent
Marilyn Cyr
Antonio Aliaga
Alexey Kostikov
Esther Schirrmacher
Jean-Paul Soucy
Naguib Mechawar
Pedro Rosa-Neto
Marc-Andre Bedard
Publication date
01-12-2013
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
EJNMMI Research / Issue 1/2013
Electronic ISSN: 2191-219X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/2191-219X-3-70

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