Functional Brain Receptor Imaging with Positron Emission Tomography

A new cocaine derivative for imaging the dopamine transporter has been developed. Measurements of radioligand binding of 11C-(+)-McN-5652 in vivo with PET suggests that ecstasy interacts directly with the serotonin reuptake sites and that a single oral dose of ecstasy (1.5 mg/kg) does not cause any changes in the serotonin transporter density in the human brain. Finally, a number of epibatidine derivatives have been developed as ligands to study the central nAChRs in vivo, however, toxicity studies prevented further clinical use.