Abstract
PET radiotracers are functional compounds that are labeled with positron-emitting radionuclides and identifying a tracer with specific properties is a necessity for PET imaging. Radiotracers for brain imaging must have several important features, such as having clear targets, non-invasiveness, and quantifiability; therefore, they have consistently remained a hot topic in radiopharmaceutical development. Most radiotracers for PET imaging of the brain use nuclides with short half-lives, which commonly include 11C, 13N, 15O, and 18F, which have half-lives of 20.5, 10, 2.1, and 110 min, respectively. These elements are the building blocks of human life, and therefore, the metabolic processes of their radioactively labeled compounds can reflect changes in the body’s physiological and biochemical functions. In this chapter, we will introduce the radiotracers frequently used for PET imaging of the brain.
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Qiao, H., Lu, J. (2023). Radiotracers for PET Imaging of the Brain. In: Lu, J., Zhao, G. (eds) PET/MR: Functional and Molecular Imaging of Neurological Diseases and Neurosciences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9902-4_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9902-4_5
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