Background An estimated 18 million adults in the United States meet the clinical criteria for diagnosis of alcohol abuse or alcoholism, a disorder ranked as the third leading cause of preventable death. In addition to brain pathology, heavy alcohol consumption is co-morbid with damage to major organs including heart, lungs, liver, pancreas and kidneys. Much of what is known about risk for and consequences of heavy consumption derive from rodent or retrospective human studies. The neurobiological effects of chronic intake in rodent studies may not easily translate to humans due to key differences in brain structure and organization between species, including a lack of higher-order cognitive functions, and differences in underlying prefrontal cortical neural structures that characterize the primate brain. Further, rodents do not voluntarily consume large quantities of EtOH and they metabolize it more rapidly than primates. Methods The basis of the Monkey Alcohol Tissue Research Resource (MATRR) is that nonhuman primates (NHPs), specifically monkeys, show a range of drinking excessive amounts of alcohol (>3.0 g/kg or a 12 drink equivalent/day) over long periods of time (12–30 months) with concomitant pathological changes in endocrine, hepatic and central nervous system (CNS) processes. The patterns and range of alcohol intake that monkeys voluntarily consume parallel what is observed in humans with alcohol use disorders and the longitudinal experimental design spans stages of drinking from the ethanol-naïve state to early exposure through chronic abuse. Age- and sex-matched control animals self-administer an isocaloric solution under identical operant procedures. Results The MATRR is a unique post-mortem tissue bank that provides CNS and peripheral tissues, and associated bioinformatics from monkeys that self-administer ethanol using a standardized experimental paradigm to the broader alcohol research community. Conclusions This resource provides a translational platform from which we can better understand the disease processes associated with alcoholism.

Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) has been demonstrated to be closely involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD), and pharmacological blockade of LRRK2 represents a new opportunity for therapeutical treatment of PD and other related neurodegenerative conditions. The development of an LRRK2-specific positron emission tomography (PET) ligand would enable a target occupancy study in vivo and greatly facilitate LRRK2 drug discovery and clinical translation as well as provide a molecular imaging tool for studying physiopathological changes in neurodegenerative diseases. In this work, we present the design and development of compound 8 (PF-06455943) as a promising PET radioligand through a PET-specific structure−activity relationship optimization, followed by comprehensive pharmacology and ADME/neuroPK characterization. Following an efficient 18 F-labeling method, we have confirmed high brain penetration of [ 18 F]8 in nonhuman primates (NHPs) and validated its specific binding in vitro by autoradiography in postmortem NHP brain tissues and in vivo by PET imaging studies.

Numerous biochemical as well as electrophysiological techniques require tissue that must be retrieved very quickly following death in order to preserve the physiological integrity of the neuronal environment. Therefore, the ability to accurately predict the precise locations of brain regions of interest (ROI) and to retrieve those areas as quickly as possible following the brain harvest is critical for subsequent analyses. One way to achieve this objective is the utilization of high resolution MRI scans to guide the subsequent dissections. In the present study, individual MRI scans of the brains of rhesus and cynomolgus macaques that had chronically self-administered ethanol were employed in order to determine which blocks of dissected tissue contained specific ROIs. MRI-guided brain dissection of discrete brain regions was completely accurate in 100% of the cases. In comparison, approximately 60–70% accuracy was achieved in dissections that relied on external landmarks alone without the aid of MRI. These results clearly demonstrate that the accuracy of targeting specific brain areas can be improved with high-resolution MR imaging.

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Appropriate animal models are critical to conduct translational studies of human disorders without variables that can confound clinical studies. Such analytic methods as patch-clamp electrophysiological and voltammetric recordings of neurons in brain slices require living brain tissue. In order to obtain viable tissue from nonhuman primate brains, tissue collection methods must be designed to preserve cardiovascular and respiratory functions for as long as possible. This paper describes a method of necropsy in three species of monkeys that satisfies this requirement. At necropsy, animals were maintained under a deep surgical plane of anesthesia while a craniotomy was conducted to expose the brain. Following the craniotomy, animals were perfused with ice-cold, oxygenated artificial cerebrospinal fluid to displace blood and to reduce the temperature of the entire brain. The brain was removed within minutes of death and specific brain regions were immediately dissected for subsequent in vitro electrophysiology or voltammetry experiments. This necropsy method also provided for the collection of tissue blocks containing all brain regions that were immediately frozen and stored for subsequent genomic, proteomic, autoradiographic and histological studies. An added benefit from the design of this necropsy method is that all major peripheral tissues were also collected and are now being utilized in a wide range of genomic, biochemical and histological assays. This necropsy method has resulted in the establishment and growth of a nonhuman primate alcohol tissue bank designed to distribute central nervous system and peripheral tissues to the larger scientific community.

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Dysregulation of microtubules is commonly associated with several psychiatric and neurological disorders, including addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. Imaging of microtubules in vivo using positron emission tomography (PET) could provide valuable information on their role in the development of disease pathogenesis and aid in improving therapeutic regimens. We developed [11C]MPC-6827, the first brain-penetrating PET radiotracer to image microtubules in vivo in the mouse brain. The aim of the present study was to assess the reproducibility of [11C]MPC-6827 PET imaging in non-human primate brains. Two dynamic 0–120 min PET/CT imaging scans were performed in each of four healthy male cynomolgus monkeys approximately one week apart. Time activity curves (TACs) and standard uptake values (SUVs) were determined for whole brains and specific regions of the brains and compared between the “test” and “retest” data. [11C]MPC-6827 showed excellent brain uptake with good pharmacokinetics in non-human primate brains, with significant correlation between the test and retest scan data (r = 0.77, p = 0.023). These initial evaluations demonstrate the high translational potential of [11C]MPC-6827 to image microtubules in the brain in vivo in monkey models of neurological and psychiatric diseases.

GluN2B is the most studied subunit of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) and implicated in the pathologies of various central nervous system disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. As pan NMDAR antagonists often produce debilitating side effects, new approaches in drug discovery have shifted to subtype-selective NMDAR modulators, especially GluN2B-selective antagonists. While positron emission tomography (PET) studies of GluN2B-selective NMDARs in the living brain would enable target engagement in drug development and improve our understanding in the NMDAR signaling pathways between normal and disease conditions, a suitable PET ligand is yet to be identified. Herein we developed an 18 F-labeled potent antagonist, 2-((1-(4-[ 18 F]fluoro-3methylphenyl)-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)methoxy)-5-methoxypyrimidine ([ 18 F]13; also called [ 18 F]N2B-0518) as a PET tracer for imaging the GluN2B subunit. The radiofluorination of [ 18 F]13 was efficiently achieved by our spirocyclic iodonium ylide (SCIDY) method. In in vitro autoradiography studies, [ 18 F]13 displayed highly region-specific binding in brain sections of rat and non-human primate, which was in accordance with the expression of GluN2B subunit. Ex vivo biodistribution in mice revealed that [ 18 F]13 could penetrate the blood-brain barrier with moderate brain uptake (3.60% ID/g at 2 min) and rapid washout. Altogether, this work provides a GluN2Bselective PET tracer bearing new chemical scaffold and shows high specificity to GluN2B subunit in vitro, which may pave the way for the development of a new generation of GluN2B PET ligands.