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Aspects of PET imaging relevant to the assessment of striatal transplantation in Huntington's disease
Author(s) -
BESRET LAURENT,
KENDALL A. LISA,
DUNNETT STEPHEN B.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of anatomy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.932
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1469-7580
pISSN - 0021-8782
DOI - 10.1046/j.1469-7580.2000.19640597.x
Subject(s) - transplantation , dopaminergic , medicine , pet imaging , neuroscience , huntington's disease , disease , clinical trial , medium spiny neuron , striatum , bioinformatics , psychology , pathology , dopamine , biology , positron emission tomography
Proper assessment of outcome in clinical trials of neural transplantation requires both biochemical and imaging indices of graft survival, and behavioural and physiological indices of graft function. For transplantation in Huntington's disease, a variety of ligands that are selective for striatal degeneration and graft‐derived replacement are available, notably ligands of dopaminergic receptors on striatal neurons. However, the validity of such ligands is potentially compromised by adjunctive drug therapies (e.g. neuroleptics) given to patients in the course of normal clinical care. We review the present state of experimental and clinical understanding of the selectivity of available ligands for striatal imaging, their interaction with other drug treatments, and strategies for refining valid assessment protocols in patients.