ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the different approaches that have been proposed to measure dopaminergic radioligand-receptor binding in vivo using positron emission tomography (PET). It highlights the relevant observations suggesting PET could be a useful tool to measure in vivo binding, discusses the development and charactristics of appropriate dopaminergic radioligands, summarizes different methods of data analysis, and reviews the clinical applications involving patients with involuntary movement disorders. Nonspecific binding is usually quantified by performing identical experiments without and with an excess of unlabeled high affinity ligand to block specific binding. Most of the peer-reviewed published PET studies of dopaminergic receptor binding in humans have investigated parkinsonian patients. There are a number of different radioligands and methods of data analysis applied to PET studies of dopaminergic receptor binding. One must carefully choose the appropriate radioligand for a given investigation, and it is crucial to understand the assumptions, advantages, and limitations of the method of data analysis.
