ORIGINAL ARTICLES  NEU­RO­PHAR­MA­COL­O­GY 

The Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine 1998 September;42(3):158-65

Copyright © 2000 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Special issues in quantitation of brain receptors and related markers by emission computed tomography

Links J. M.

From the Radiology and Radiological Science Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

Emis­sion com­puted tomog­raphy pro­vides an oppor­tu­nity to quan­tify neu­ro­trans­mitter-neu­ro­re­ceptor ­systems in ­vivo. In ­order to do so, ­very ­high ­image ­quality and quan­ti­ta­tive accu­racy are ­required. Quan­ti­ta­tion of ­receptor ­systems ­involves con­sid­er­a­tions of phys­ical ­effects (­such as ­finite spa­tial res­o­lu­tion, ­scatter, and atten­u­a­tion), instru­men­ta­tion ­design (­such as spa­tial sam­pling), ­image pro­cessing (­such as fil­tering), and ­data anal­ysis (­such as ­kinetic mod­eling). Appro­priate appli­ca­tion of ­these con­sid­er­a­tions can ­lead to ­useful ­results, but ­emerging ­approaches ­promise ­even ­greater ­levels of accu­racy and pre­ci­sion.