Isoflurane and ketamine-xylazine modify pharmacokinetics of [18F]SynVesT-1 in the mouse brain

Dynamic neuroreceptor positron emission tomography in non-anesthetized rats using point source based motion correction: A feasibility study with [11C]ABP688

To prevent motion artifacts in small animal positron emission tomography (PET), animals are routinely scanned under anesthesia or physical restraint. Both may potentially alter metabolism and neurochemistry. This study investigates the feasibility of fully awake acquisition and subsequent absolute quantification of dynamic brain PET data via pharmacokinetic modelling in moving rats using the glutamate 5 receptor radioligand [11C]ABP688 and point source based motion correction. Five male rats underwent three dynamic [11C]ABP688 PET scans: two test-retest awake PET scans and one scan under anesthesia for comparison. Specific radioligand binding was determined via the simplified reference tissue model (reference: cerebellum) and outcome parameters BPND and R1 were evaluated in terms of stability and reproducibility. Test-retest measurements in awake animals gave reliable results with high correlations of BPND (y = 1.08 × -0.2, r = 0.99, p < 0.01) and an acceptable variability (mean over all investigated regions 15.7 ± 2.4%). Regional [11C]ABP688 BPNDs under awake and anesthetized conditions were comparable although in awake scans, absolute radioactive peak uptakes were lower and relative blood flow in terms of R1 was higher. Awake small animal PET with absolute quantification of neuroreceptor availability is technically feasible and reproducible thereby providing a suitable alternative whenever effects of anesthesia are undesirable, e.g. in sleep research.

Accurate image derived input function in [18F]SynVesT-1 mouse studies using isoflurane and ketamine/xylazine anesthesia

BACKGROUND

Kinetic modeling in positron emission tomography (PET) requires measurement of the tracer plasma activity in the absence of a suitable reference region. To avoid invasive blood sampling, the use of an image derived input function has been proposed. However, an accurate delineation of the blood pool region in the PET image is necessary to obtain unbiased blood activity. Here, to perform brain kinetic modeling in [18F]SynVesT-1 dynamic scans, we make use of non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) to unmix the activity signal from the different tissues that can contribute to the heart region activity, and extract only the left ventricle activity in an unbiased way. This method was implemented in dynamic [18F]SynVesT-1 scans of mice anesthetized with either isoflurane or ketamine-xylazine, two anesthestics that we showed to affect differently radiotracer kinetics. The left ventricle activity (NMF-IDIF) and a manually delineated cardiac activity (IDIF) were compared with arterial blood samples (ABS), and for isoflurane anesthetized mice, arteriovenous (AV) shunt blood data were compared as well. Finally, brain regional 2 tissue compartment modeling was performed using IDIF and NMF-IDIF, and the model fit accuracy (weighted symmetrical mean absolute percentage error, wsMAPE) as well as the total volume of distribution (VT) were compared.

RESULTS

In isoflurane anesthetized mice, the difference between ABS and NMF-IDIF activity (+ 12.8 [Formula: see text] 11%, p = 0.0023) was smaller than with IDIF (+ 16.4 [Formula: see text] 9.8%, p = 0.0008). For ketamine-xylazine anesthetized mice the reduction in difference was larger (NMF-IDIF: 16.9 [Formula: see text] 10%, p = 0.0057, IDIF: 56.3 [Formula: see text] 14%, p < 0.0001). Correlation coefficient between isoflurane AV-shunt time activity curves and NMF-IDIF (0.97 [Formula: see text] 0.01) was higher than with IDIF (0.94 [Formula: see text] 0.03). The brain regional 2TCM wsMAPE was improved using NMF-IDIF compared with IDIF, in isoflurane (NMF-IDIF: 1.24 [Formula: see text] 0.24%, IDIF: 1.56 [Formula: see text] 0.30%) and ketamine-xylazine (NMF-IDIF: 1.40 [Formula: see text] 0.24, IDIF: 2.62 [Formula: see text] 0.27) anesthetized mice. Finally, brain VT was significantly (p < 0.0001) higher using NMF-IDIF compared with IDIF, in isoflurane (3.97 [Formula: see text] 0.13% higher) and ketamine-xylazine (32.7 [Formula: see text] 2.4% higher) anesthetized mice.

CONCLUSIONS

Image derived left ventricle blood activity calculated with NMF improves absolute activity quantification, and reduces the error in the kinetic modeling fit. These improvements are more pronounced in ketamine-xylazine than in isoflurane anesthetized mice.