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Neuroscience and accelerator mass spectrometry

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is a mass spectrometric method for quantifying rare isotopes. It has had a great impact in geochronology and archaeology and is now being applied in biomedicine. AMS measures radioisotopes such as 3H, 14C, 26Al, 36Cl and 41Ca, with zepto- or attomole sensitivity and high precision and throughput, allowing safe human pharmacokinetic studies involving microgram doses, agents having low bioavailability or toxicology studies where administered doses must be kept low (<1 microg kg(-1)). It is used to study long-term pharmacokinetics, to identify biomolecular interactions, to determine chronic and low-dose effects or molecular targets of neurotoxic substances, to quantify transport across the blood-brain barrier and to resolve molecular turnover rates in the human brain on the time-scale of decades. We review here how AMS is applied in neurotoxicology and neuroscience.