A novel blood-free analytical framework for the quantification of neuroinflammatory load from TSPO PET imaging.

ABSTRACT: Positron Emission Tomography (PET) of 18 kDa translocator protein (TSPO) has been investigated as putative marker of neuroinflammation but faces substantial methodological challenges. These include issues with arterial blood sampling for kinetic modeling, the absence of suitable reference regions, genetic polymorphisms affecting tracer affinity, altered blood-to-brain tracer delivery in inflammatory conditions, and high signal variability. This study presents a novel blood-free reference-free method for TSPO PET quantification, leveraging a logistic regression model to estimate the probability of TSPO overexpression across brain regions. Validation was performed on 323 human brain scans from five datasets and three radiotracers. The quantified TSPO topology in healthy controls showed stron

SUBMITTER: Maccioni L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12316680 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature