In vivo Imaging of Brain Dopaminergic Neurotransmission System in Small Animals with High-resolution Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography

Neurobehavioral protection by single dose l-deprenyl against MPTP-induced parkinsonism in common marmosets

“…Furthermore, MPTP-induced neurodamage at the striatum and substantia nigra was also examined by autoradiography using ligands for dopamine transporter as well as dopamine D1 and D2 receptors. Different from other studies showing l-deprenyl protection from MPTP toxicity in common marmosets (Kupsch et al 2001;Saji et al 2003;Sandler et al 1987), the present study demonstrated that a single dose of l-deprenyl exhibited neurobehavioral protection.…”

“…In other studies using marmosets, four repeated administrations of l-deprenyl before each of four repeated MPTP administrations (Kupsch et al 2001) and two repeated administrations of l-deprenyl before each MPTP administration with ketamine anesthesia separated by 1-week interval (Saji et al 2003) were reported to protect against parkinsonism. In the present study, daily activity counts of marmosets in their individual living cages were recorded continuously, while the activity of marmosets in other studies were recorded in outside test chambers for only 2 h per day (Kupsch et al 2001) or 6 h per day (Saji et al 2003). The present study demonstrated that continuous recording of marmoset activities in its living cages has a distinct advantage for detecting parkinsonism and drug effects sensitively without any distracted factors including moving animals from living cages to outside experimental chambers.…”

“…D2 receptor bindings of [ 11 C] raclopride did not show any statistically significant change. In other studies, dopamine neuroterminal damage and receptor sensitivity changes were observed by SPECT using [ 123 I]β-CIT and [ 123 I]IBZM, respectively (Saji et al 2003). As neural changes are thought to move dynamically from one stage to others across time or days, PET could detect such dynamic process of MPTP-induced neural damages in the brains of cynomolgus monkey (Nagai et al 2007).…”

“…Another style of studies is testing drug protective action against MPTP toxicity by treating test drug with MPTP. For example, l-deprenyl (selegiline) was reported to protect against MPTP-induced parkinsonism (Barnes et al 1986;Jenner and Marsden 1986;Kupsch et al 2001;Saji et al 2003;Sandler et al 1987). As ldeprenyl has been characterized for its protective action of MAO-B inhibition against MPTP toxicity in marmosets (Jenner 2004) and l-deprenyl is being used clinically for the treatment of Parkinson's disease (Lees et al 1977;Palhagen et al 2006), it may be a reasonable option to use l-deprenyl as a reference drug for evaluating behavioral method.…”

Overview of Nuclear Medical Imaging: Physics and Instrumentation

“…SPECT and micro-SPECT imaging studies of small animals already are being used to investigate numerous aspects of cancer including multidrug resistance in tumours of the breast 91 and lung, 92 apoptosis as an early indicator of therapeutic outcome, 93 use of nucleoside analogs for imaging tissue proliferation, 94 delineating the role of anti-EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) in cell division, cancer progression, angiogenesis, and metastasis 95 and for development of pharmaceuticals for diagnosis, staging, and treatment of cancer. 93,96 Other investigators have developed noninvasive methods using high resolution SPECT and PET to assess cardiac volumes and ejection fraction, 97 progression of Parkinson's disease, 98 epilepsy, 99 development of pulmonary emboli and venous thrombi, 100 dopaminergic neurotransmission, [101][102][103] and development of myocardial infarction. 104 Finally, unlike microPET which can only detect 511 keV annihilation photons in coincidence, microSPECT can perform dual-isotope imaging that allows multiple processes to be monitored simultaneously during a single imaging study.…”