Person:

Alpert, Nathaniel

This study employed simultaneous neuroimaging with positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to demonstrate the relationship between changes in receptor occupancy measured by PET and changes in brain activity inferred by fMRI. By administering the D2/D3 dopamine receptor antagonist [11C]raclopride at varying specific activities to anesthetized nonhuman primates, we mapped associations between changes in receptor occupancy and hemodynamics [cerebral blood volume (CBV)] in the domains of space, time, and dose. Mass doses of raclopride above tracer levels caused increases in CBV and reductions in binding potential that were localized to the dopamine-rich striatum. Moreover, similar temporal profiles were observed for specific binding estimates and changes in CBV. Injection of graded raclopride mass doses revealed a monotonic coupling between neurovascular responses and receptor occupancies. The distinct CBV magnitudes between putamen and caudate at matched occupancies approximately matched literature differences in basal dopamine levels, suggesting that the relative fMRI measurements reflect basal D2/D3 dopamine receptor occupancy. These results can provide a basis for models that relate dopaminergic occupancies to hemodynamic changes in the basal ganglia. Overall, these data demonstrate the utility of simultaneous PET/fMRI for investigations of neurovascular coupling that correlate neurochemistry with hemodynamic changes in vivo for any receptor system with an available PET tracer.

This report describes a multi-receptor physiological model of the fMRI temporal response and signal magnitude evoked by drugs that elevate synaptic dopamine in basal ganglia. The model is formulated as a summation of dopamine's effects at D1-like and D2-like receptor families, which produce functional excitation and inhibition, respectively, as measured by molecular indicators like adenylate cyclase or neuroimaging techniques like fMRI. Functional effects within the model are described in terms of relative changes in receptor occupancies scaled by receptor densities and neuro-vascular coupling constants. Using literature parameters, the model reconciles many discrepant observations and interpretations of pre-clinical data. Additionally, we present data showing that amphetamine stimulation produces fMRI inhibition at low doses and a biphasic response at higher doses in the basal ganglia of non-human primates (NHP), in agreement with model predictions based upon the respective levels of evoked dopamine. Because information about dopamine release is required to inform the fMRI model, we simultaneously acquired PET 11C-raclopride data in several studies to evaluate the relationship between raclopride displacement and assumptions about dopamine release. At high levels of dopamine release, results suggest that refinements of the model will be required to consistently describe the PET and fMRI data. Overall, the remarkable success of the model in describing a wide range of preclinical fMRI data indicate that this approach will be useful for guiding the design and analysis of basic science and clinical investigations and for interpreting the functional consequences of dopaminergic stimulation in normal subjects and in populations with dopaminergic neuroadaptations.