PET imaging of human brain a2-adrenoceptors and noradrenaline release: biomarkers for brain diseases; Focus depression

人脑α2-肾上腺素受体和去甲肾上腺素释放的 PET 成像：脑部疾病的生物标志物；

• 批准号: G0601461/1
• 负责人: David Nutt
• 金额: $ 46.36万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2007 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=G0601461%2F1
• 关键词: PET; imaging; human; brain; a2

Depression is an extremely debilitating disease that has a major impact on the health services and the nation as a whole, which is estimated financially to be around 12billion a year. Depression is caused by imbalances of normal brain chemicals and process. Powerful techniques available today allow the study of brain chemicals and processes in normal and abnormal brains in living people. These techniques relay on the availability of specially designed radioactive chemicals that provide a means to visualise what is happening in the brain. These radioactive chemicals are only available to study a small number of these brain chemicals and processes. Where they are available, they have been responsible for major increases in our understanding and treatment of brain diseases.Noradrenaline, a signalling chemical found throughout the brain is one of the many chemicals and process that we are currently unable to study using the techniques mentioned. This chemical and the processes it is involved in have been implicated in depression and many other debilitating brain diseases, in studies using animals and post mortem human tissue. The difficulties in using these sources of information are that they rely on assumptions being made in our understanding of how these diseases progress in humans. For example, we are not laboratory animals and while there are many similarities that have enabled great advances in our understanding of disease and their treatment confirmation in humans is very important. The use of post mortem human tissue only tells us what has happened and not how or when. Therefore, the development of one of these radioactive chemicals to enable the study of noradrenaline and its related processes in the living human brain of normal people and those suffering depression is critical to our proper understanding of this disease. This in turn will allow us to better diagnose depression and lead to a much better prognosis for the sufferer. It would also permit us to refine the treatments that we already have and to develop new and better ones.

抑郁症是一种使人极度衰弱的疾病，对医疗服务和整个国家都有重大影响，据估计，每年的财政支出约为120亿美元。抑郁症是由正常大脑化学物质和过程的不平衡引起的。当今强大的技术使我们能够研究活人正常和不正常大脑中的大脑化学物质和过程。这些技术依赖于特殊设计的放射性化学物质的可用性，这些化学物质提供了一种可视化大脑中发生的事情的手段。这些放射性化学物质只能用于研究这些大脑化学物质和过程中的一小部分。在它们可用的地方，它们对我们对脑部疾病的理解和治疗有了很大的提高。去甲肾上腺素是一种遍布大脑的信号化学物质，是我们目前无法使用上述技术研究的许多化学物质和过程之一。在使用动物和死后人体组织的研究中，这种化学物质及其所涉及的过程与抑郁症和许多其他使人衰弱的脑部疾病有关。使用这些信息来源的困难在于，它们依赖于我们对这些疾病如何在人类中发展的理解所做的假设。例如，我们不是实验动物，虽然有许多相似之处使我们对疾病及其治疗的理解取得了巨大进展，但在人类身上确认是非常重要的。使用死后的人体组织只能告诉我们发生了什么，而不能告诉我们发生的方式和时间。因此，开发一种放射性化学物质来研究正常人和抑郁症患者大脑中的去甲肾上腺素及其相关过程，对我们正确理解这种疾病至关重要。反过来，这将使我们能够更好地诊断抑郁症，并为患者提供更好的预后。它还将使我们能够改进现有的治疗方法，并开发出新的、更好的治疗方法。