Tracers progress for positron emission tomography imaging of glial-related disease

Abstract

Glial cells play an essential part in the neuron system. They can not only serve as structural blocks in the human brain but also participate in many biological processes. Extensive studies have shown that astrocytes and microglia play an important role in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, as well as glioma, epilepsy, ischemic stroke, and infections. Positron emission tomography is a functional imaging technique providing molecular-level information before anatomic changes are visible and has been widely used in many above-mentioned diseases. In this review, we focus on the positron emission tomography tracers used in pathologies related to glial cells, such as glioma, Alzheimer's disease, and neuroinflammation.

Editorial commentary on the special issue of glia and neurological diseases

“…Zheng et al reviewed the latest progress in spinal cord tissue repair by transplantation of human astrocytes of various origins, including fetal brain, spinal cord and pluripotent stem cells [ 2 ] . Jia et al summarized the frontier progress in glial cell-type oriented tracers for PET imaging [ 3 ] . Gong et al summarized the recent studies about the dysfunction of oligodendrocytes in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [ 4 ] .…”