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Effect of sex on aging-related decline of dopamine transporter in healthy subjects

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A Correction to this article was published on 05 May 2023

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Abstract

Objective

Aging decreases dopamine transporter (DAT) availability of striatum both in humans and rodents. We aimed to investigate the relationship of DAT availabilities from ventral striatum, caudate nucleus, and putamen with aging in healthy subjects.

Methods

123I-FP-CIT single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) was performed in all subjects. Specific binding of 123I-FP-CIT regarding DAT was calculated using a volume-of-interest-based analysis of ventral striatum, caudate nucleus, putamen. The cerebellum was chosen as a reference region. Specific binding ratios (SBRs) were calculated as follows: SBR = (target– cerebellum)/cerebellum.

Results

A total of 166 healthy subjects (109 males and 57 females) were included in this study. SBRs of ventral striatum, caudate nucleus, and putamen were negatively correlated with age. In young males, SBRs of ventral striatum and putamen were not correlated with aging. However, SBRs of caudate nucleus showed the trend toward negative correlation with age in the young group. In old males, SBR of caudate nucleus was negatively correlated with age and SBR of ventral striatum showed a trend toward negative correlation with age. Slopes of regression lines were not significantly different according to age groups in ventral striatum, caudate nucleus, or putamen. SBRs of ventral striatum, caudate nucleus, and putamen were negatively correlated with age in young females, but not in old females. Interestingly, slopes of regression line were significantly different between young and old females in ventral striatum, caudate nucleus, and putamen.

Conclusions

We have shown that slopes of regression lines of DAT availabilities and age were significantly different between young and old subjects in females, not in males. Therefore, sex has an impact on aging-related decline of striatal DAT availability.

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Acknowledgements

PPMI is sponsored and partially funded by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF). Other funding partners include a consortium of industry players, non-profit organizations and private individuals; abbvie, Allergan, amathus therapeutics, Avid aradiopharmaceuticals, Biogen, BioLegend, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, DENALI, GE Healthcare, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, GOLUB CAPITAL, Handl Therapeutics, insitro, Janssen neuroscience, Lilly, Lundbeck, Merck, MSD, Pfizer, Piramal, Prevail therapeutics, Roche, SANOFI GENZYME, SERVIER, Takeda, TEVA, ucb, verily, Voyager therapeutics.

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Author notes

  1. Hyun-Yeol Nam, Myung Jun Lee, and Kyoungjune Pak contributed equally as corresponding author.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Samsung Changwon Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Changwon, Republic of Korea

    Seunghyeon Shin & Hyun-Yeol Nam

  2. Departments of Neurology and Biomedical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Republic of Korea

    Myung Jun Lee

  3. Department of Nuclear Medicine and Biomedical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Republic of Korea

    Kyoungjune Pak, Keunyoung Kim & In Joo Kim

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  1. Seunghyeon Shin
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Correspondence to Hyun-Yeol Nam, Myung Jun Lee or Kyoungjune Pak.

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Shin, S., Nam, HY., Lee, M.J. et al. Effect of sex on aging-related decline of dopamine transporter in healthy subjects. Ann Nucl Med 35, 76–82 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-020-01538-8

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