“…The DAT is also the target of several drugs of abuse including cocaine, , amphetamines, and MDMA (ecstasy), and this has led to the search for compounds that can be employed as potential cocaine addiction therapeutics. , From this research evolved the 3β-phenyl tropane class of DAT ligands of which compounds 1 − 6 were the first to be prepared. − These compounds have since been exploited for PET imaging due to the ability to radiolabel with carbon-11 on either the N -methyl group or the O -methyl ester. − Carbon-11 has a half-life of 20.4 min, which limits the use of 11 C-labeled tracers to the location where they are prepared and to imaging sessions of about 2 h. Fluorine-18 has a half-life of 109.8 min, which allows for longer radiosynthesis times and imaging sessions, and also for the transport of the 18 F radiotracer to PET imaging facilities that do not have onsite cyclotrons. Additionally, 18 F positrons have a lower maximum energy (0.64 MeV) than 11 C positrons (0.97 MeV), which therefore deposits less energy into tissue and also results in a positron with a shorter linear range which allows for higher spatial resolution. , These physical properties of 18 F are serendipitous due to the increasingly valuable role that 19 F is playing in medicinal chemistry, − and a variety of synthetic methods have now been developed to incorporate 18 F or 19 F into molecules. − …”