The Edmond J. Safra Program in Parkinson's Disease & Movement Disorder Unit, Toronto Western Hospital & Krembil Research Institute, University Health Network; Research Imaging Centre, Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Clinical Ageing Research Unit, Newcastle University, Campus for Ageing and Vitality, Westgate Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.
Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep. 2019 May 28;19(7):38. doi: 10.1007/s11910-019-0951-x.
Microglial cell activation is an important component of neuroinflammation, and it is generally well accepted that chronic microglial activation is indicative of accumulating tissue damage in neurodegenerative conditions, particularly in the earlier stages of disease. Until recently, there has been less focus on the role of neuroinflammation in other forms of neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions. Through this review, we hope to demonstrate the important role TSPO PET imaging has played in illuminating the pivotal role of neuroinflammation and microglial activation underpinning these conditions.
TSPO is an 18 kDa protein found on the outer membrane of mitochondria and can act as a marker of microglial activation using nuclear imaging. Through the development of radiopharmaceuticals targeting TSPO, researchers have been able to better characterise the spatial-temporal evolution of chronic neurological conditions, ranging from the focal autoimmune reactions seen in multiple sclerosis to the Wallerian degeneration at remote parts of the brain months following acute cerebral infarction. Development of novel techniques to investigate neuroinflammation within the central nervous system, for the purposes of diagnosis and therapeutics, has flourished over the past few decades. TSPO has proven itself a robust and sensitive biomarker of microglial activation and neuroimaging affords a minimally invasive technique to characterise neuroinflammatory processes in vivo.
小胶质细胞激活是神经炎症的一个重要组成部分，人们普遍认为慢性小胶质细胞激活是神经退行性疾病中组织损伤累积的标志，尤其是在疾病的早期阶段。直到最近，人们对神经炎症在其他形式的神经和神经精神疾病中的作用关注较少。通过本次综述，我们希望展示 TSPO PET 成像在阐明这些疾病中神经炎症和小胶质细胞激活的关键作用方面所发挥的重要作用。
TSPO 是一种 18 kDa 的蛋白质，位于线粒体的外膜上，可用作核成像中小胶质细胞激活的标志物。通过开发针对 TSPO 的放射性药物，研究人员能够更好地描述慢性神经疾病的时空演变，从多发性硬化症中出现的局灶性自身免疫反应到急性脑梗死数月后大脑远端的沃勒变性。在过去几十年中，为了诊断和治疗目的，开发了许多用于研究中枢神经系统神经炎症的新技术。TSPO 已被证明是小胶质细胞激活的一种强大而敏感的生物标志物，神经影像学提供了一种微创技术来在体内描述神经炎症过程。
