Age-dependent decline of nigrostriatal dopaminergic function: a positron emission tomographic study of grandparents and their grandchildren.

Despite postmortem evidence for an age-related decline in nigrostriatal dopaminergic function, position emission tomography (PET) studies have produced inconsistent results. This may be due to differences in methods or of subject selection. To investigate further the effect of age on dopaminergic function, we performed PET with 6-L-[18F]fluorodopa (FD) on 12 pairs of grandchildren and their grandparents. The FD uptake rate constant (Ki) was calculated using a graphical method for the whole striatum to avoid confounding of the results by striatal atrophy. The mean Ki was significantly lower in grandparents (p = 0.020). These PET observations represent in vivo confirmation of postmortem evidence that nigrostriatal dopaminergic function declines with aging.