Target-Specific PET Probes for Neurodegenerative Disorders Related

Dementia is a highly prevalent problem causing considerable disability and mortality and exacting great costs to individuals, their families, and society. The 4 most common neurodegener-ative disorders that cause dementia—Alzheimer disease, fronto-temporal dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, and dementia in Parkinson disease—have different underlying etiologies and pathogenetic mechanisms. There is a great need for early diag-nostic markers; functional brain imaging may therefore assist in thedetection anddifferential diagnosis of dementia due to neuro-degenerative diseases. Functional imaging such as PET allows in vivo imaging of functional brain activity indicating cerebral blood flow and cerebral glucose metabolism, and PET allows imaging of neurotransmitter activity, including that of the cholinergic, dop-aminergic, and serotonergic systems. New PET neuroimaging tracers are being developed for detecting pathologic parameters such as amyloid plaque andmicroglial activity. The development ofmolecular imaging is important for early diagnosis of dementia, selection of patients for therapies, and evaluation of therapies. Key Words: PET; dementia; neurodegenerative disorders; functional activity; neurotransmitter patholog