(Press-News.org) Reston, VA (March 28, 2025)—A novel PET imaging approach can effectively quantify a key enzyme associated with brain inflammation, according to research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. The first-in-human study, which imaged the COX-2 enzyme, offers a never-before-seen view of inflammation in the brain, opening the door for COX-2 PET imaging to be used in clinical and research settings for various brain disorders.
COX-2 is an enzyme in the brain that can be markedly upregulated by inflammatory stimuli and neuroexcitation. Researchers say that the density of COX-2 in the brain may be a biomarker and effect of inflammation, even if it is not a mediator of the inflammatory process.
“While COX-2 has been widely studied in peripheral inflammation, its role in neuroinflammation has been difficult to quantify in vivo,” stated Robert B. Innis, MD, PhD, senior investigator in the Molecular Imaging Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. “We sought to establish a non-invasive imaging method to measure COX-2 in the living brain to enable earlier disease detection, monitor disease progression, and assess anti-inflammatory treatments.”
This study evaluated the ability of 11C-MC1 to measure COX-2 levels in the healthy human brain. First, 11C-MC1’s affinity for human COX-2 was assessed by conducting PET imaging in rats injected with lipopolysaccharide and in humanized transgenic COX-2 mice. Specific binding to human COX-2 was confirmed. Subsequently, 27 healthy human volunteers were imaged with 11C-MC1 PET to quantify the density of COX-2 in the human brain.
Among study participants, 11C-MC1 efficiently crossed the blood–brain barrier, bound to its designated target, and demonstrated high specificity for human COX-2. The radiotracer also had a moderate ratio of specific to background uptake binding potential in cortical regions.
“Neuroinflammation plays a critical role in many neurological and psychiatric diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and major depressive disorder,” noted Innis. “This could be a game-changer for personalized medicine and therapeutic development. It also demonstrates the potential for developing other PET tracers to investigate neuroinflammation, broadening the applications of nuclear medicine in neurology and psychiatry.”
Research reported in this press release was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health under award 1ZIAMH002852-20.
The authors of “PET Quantification in Healthy Humans of Cyclooxygenase-2, a Potential Biomarker of Neuroinflammation” include Xuefeng Yan, Cheryl L. Morse, Jeih-San Liow, Jinsoo Hong, Sanjay Telu, Min-Jeong Kim, Jose A. Montero Santamaria, Anthony Galassi, Ningping Feng, Sarah K. Williams Avram, Ted B. Usdin, Shawn Wu, Andrea Zhang, Lester S. Manly, Madeline Jenkins, Maia Van Buskirk, Adrian Lee, Sami S. Zoghbi, Victor W. Pike, Paolo Zanotti-Fregonara, and Robert B. Innis, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland; Martin Noergaard, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, and Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; and Douglas Greve, Laboratory for Computational Neuroimaging, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Visit the JNM website for the latest research, and follow our new Twitter and Facebook pages @JournalofNucMed or follow us on LinkedIn.
###
Please visit the SNMMI Media Centerfor more information about molecular imaging and precision imaging. To schedule an interview with the researchers, please contact Rebecca Maxey at (703) 652-6772 or rmaxey@snmmi.org.
About JNM and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM) is the world’s leading nuclear medicine, molecular imaging and theranostics journal, accessed 15 million times each year by practitioners around the globe, providing them with the information they need to advance this rapidly expanding field. Current and past issues of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine can be found online at http://jnm.snmjournals.org.
JNM is published by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), an international scientific and medical organization dedicated to advancing nuclear medicine, molecular imaging, and theranostics—precision medicine that allows diagnosis and treatment to be tailored to individual patients in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. For more information, visit www.snmmi.org.
END
New PET radiotracer provides first look at inflammation biomarker in the human brain
2025-03-28
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Genes may influence our enjoyment of music
2025-03-28
Music is central to human emotion and culture. Does our ability to enjoy music have a biological basis? A genetic twin study, published in Nature Communications, shows that music enjoyment is partly heritable. An international team led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, uncovered genetic factors that influence the degree of music enjoyment, which were partly distinct from genes influencing general enjoyment of rewarding experiences or musical ability.
Music plays an important role in human emotion, social bonding, and cultural expression. As Darwin already noted, music "must ...
Global patterns in seed plant distribution over millions of years
2025-03-28
Why do some plants thrive in specific regions but not in others? A study led by researchers at the University of Göttingen explores the factors shaping plant distributions and how these patterns have changed over millions of years. Analyzing nearly 270,000 seed plant species worldwide, the research highlights the roles of environmental conditions and dispersal barriers in influencing global plant diversity. The results were published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Using advanced methods that integrate plant distributions with phylogenetic information – meaning data about the evolutionary relationships among plant species – researchers ...
Fatty acids promote immune suppression and therapy resistance in triple negative breast cancer
2025-03-28
HOUSTON – (March 28, 2025) – A new study published in the journal Immunity reveals a mechanism that allows triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) to develop resistance to therapy. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine showed that lipid accumulation in tumor cells and nearby immune cells promotes immune suppression, but disrupting lipid formulation reverses treatment resistance and the immunosuppressive microenvironment.
Standard-of-care treatment for TNBC includes chemotherapy and immunotherapy. However, some initially responsive tumors still develop recurrences. Researchers studied mouse models and found that TNBC cells that survived treatment accumulated ...
Intermittent fasting increases sex drive in male mice: an approach for low libido in humans?
2025-03-28
Long-term fasting in 24-hour cycles increases the sex drive of male mice by lowering the concentration of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. This effect is linked to a diet-induced deficiency of the precursor substance tryptophan – an amino acid that must be obtained through food. Researchers from DZNE report on this in the journal Cell Metabolism, together with a Chinese team from Qingdao University and the University of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. They suggest that similar mechanisms may exist in humans and view fasting as a potential approach for treating unwanted loss of sexual desire.
Fasting ...
Scientists create protein ‘seeds’ that trigger key pathological features of ALS and frontotemporal dementia
2025-03-28
28 March 2024, Leuven, Belgium — Accumulation of a protein called TDP-43 is a key feature of ALS and frontotemporal dementia. In a newly published study, researchers report ‘seeding’ this accumulation through fragments of the culprit protein created in the lab. The findings provide further evidence for a prion-like paradigm wherein protein aggregation occurs in a templated fashion. This breakthrough provides the research field with a powerful way to model and study the mechanisms driving neurodegeneration.
TAR DNA-binding ...
Discrimination-related depression, anxiety pronounced among multiracial, White, Asian populations
2025-03-28
EMBARGOED UNTIL 11 a.m. EST on Friday, March 28, 2025
Contact:
Jillian McKoy, jpmckoy@bu.edu
Michael Saunders, msaunder@bu.edu
##
Discrimination-related Depression, Anxiety Pronounced Among Multiracial, White, Asian Populations
A new study found that more than half of US adults encounter some form of discrimination, and that this mistreatment may fuel higher chances of depression and/or anxiety among specific racial and ethnic groups due to cultural, social, and systemic factors.
A ...
New approach makes one type of clean fuel production 66% more efficient
2025-03-28
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers have uncovered a more efficient way to turn carbon dioxide into methanol, a type of alcohol that can serve as a cleaner alternative fuel.
In the lab, synthesizing methanol can be extremely difficult, due to the extremely complex reaction pathway needed to select for it. Previous attempts by the same team to manufacture this valuable liquid fuel from carbon dioxide have used a combination of cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc) molecules and electricity, but this method is inefficient as only about 30% of the carbon dioxide is converted to methanol.
To ...
AI meets oncology: New model personalizes bladder cancer treatment
2025-03-28
Leveraging the power of AI and machine learning technologies, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine developed a more effective model for predicting how patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer will respond to chemotherapy. The model harnesses whole-slide tumor imaging data and gene expression analyses in a way that outperforms previous models using a single data type.
The study, published March 22 in npj Digital Medicine, identifies key genes and tumor characteristics that may determine treatment success. The ability to accurately anticipate ...
New approach could treat anthrax beyond the “point of no return”
2025-03-28
Anthrax, an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, is often treatable in its early stages. But once the disease has progressed beyond the “point of no return” after just a few days, patients are almost certainly doomed.
In a new Nature Microbiology study, University of Pittsburgh researchers show that a cocktail of growth factors reversed would-be lethal cell damage in mice with anthrax, suggesting that this approach could be adapted for use in patients beyond the brink.
“While only a few people die from anthrax in the United States each year, there is always the concern ...
Those constantly distracted by their phone will just find other ways to procrastinate if it isn’t nearby
2025-03-28
If you just put away your phone to read this, chances are you’re not alone. Our phones are an endless source of distraction, and we interact with them every four to six minutes. This is often driven by habit as well as notifications, leading to a disrupted flow of activity while we’re trying to be productive.
A new study published in Frontiers in Computer Science investigated if placing smartphones just out of our reach while we’re at work influenced device use for activities not related ...