Effects of animal handling on striatal DAT availability in rats

Objective Positron emission tomography (PET) is a non-invasive technique measuring quantification of physiological and biochemical processes in the living organism. However, there are many considerations including anesthesia and fasting to acquire small animal imaging. We aimed to evaluate the effects of anesthesia and fasting of rats in dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging acquisition. Methods Male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats aged 7 weeks and weighing 180–260 g were used in this study. Rats were randomly divided by 4 groups. Group A was kept under anesthesia for 40 min and fasted over 12 h. Group B was only fasted over 12 h. Group C was only kept under anesthesia for 40 min. Group D was neither kept under anesthesia nor fasted over 12 h. PET scans were started at 40 min after 18 F-FP-CIT injection and obtained for 20 min. Volumes-of-interest for striatum and extrastriatal area were used for 18 F-FP-CIT PET analysis. Cerebellum was considered as a reference region. Specific binding ratio (SBR) was calculated as follows: [(uptake of target-uptake of cerebellum)]/(uptake of cerebellum). Results SBR without fasting and anesthesia (group D) was significantly lower than those of other groups (vs group A, p = 0.0004; vs group B, p = 0.0377; vs group C, p = 0.0134). However, SBRs of extrastriatal area ( p = 0.5120) were not affected by fasting and anesthesia. Conclusions In conclusion, the SBR of striatum was increased after anesthesia by isoflurane and fasting. When designing an experiment using DAT imaging, the effects of isoflurane and fasting should be considered.