Fig. 3: Imaging and quantifying the molecular blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability-surface area (PS) product of three positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracers.
From: Quantitative PET imaging and modeling of molecular blood-brain barrier permeability
a 3D renderings of molecular BBB PS maps with 18F-fluciclovine (FACBC), 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), and 11C-butanol illustrating the spectrum of molecular BBB PS across PET radiotracers. b Orthogonal slices of tracer PS, BBB transport rate (K1), extraction fraction (E), and cerebral blood flow (CBF) for each tracer. Parametric images were aligned to the Montreal Neurological Institute-152 space for visualization. Of note, the hot spots in the 18F-fluciclovine PS and K1 maps are near the choroid plexus, reflecting the higher inherent permeability of the blood-cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) barrier compared to the BBB, while for the butanol PS map, the cold spots are at CSF pools in the ventricles. c Regional quantification at the grey matter (GM), white matter (WM), and cerebellum (CB) shows substantial differences in PS and K1 between tracers (averaged across N = 5 subjects per tracer; error bars indicate standard deviation of measurement across subjects) while CBF appears comparable between tracers. PS, K1 and CBF are in units of ml/min/cm3; E is unitless.
