1Department of Neurology and National Clinical Research Center for Ageing and Medicine, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200040, China
2Krembil Institute, Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network, Toronto, ON M5T 2S8, Canada
3PET Center, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200235, China

Abstract 

Advances in radionuclide tracers have allowed for more accurate imaging that reflects the actions of numerous neurotransmitters, energy metabolism utilization, inflammation, and pathological protein accumulation. All of these achievements in molecular brain imaging have broadened our understanding of brain function in Parkinson’s disease (PD). The implementation of molecular imaging has supported more accurate PD diagnosis as well as assessment of therapeutic outcome and disease progression. Moreover, molecular imaging is well suited for the detection of preclinical or prodromal PD cases. Despite these advances, future frontiers of research in this area will focus on using multi-modalities combining positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging along with causal modeling with complex algorithms.

Keywords

Parkinson’s disease, Positron emission tomography, SPECT

[SpringerLink]