Pharmacokinetics

A major advantage of PET imaging is that it provides a quantitative measure of ligand uptake. This can be used to calculate and compare the binding potential of different drugs as well as determine the proportion of occupied receptors when a particular dose of a drug is administered.

This data is derived from time-activity curves (TAC) wherein the concentration of radioactivity in different brain regions is plotted across time on a scale that takes into account the weight of the animal, amount of radioactive material administered, etc. This allows for a direct comparison of uptake between animal and session.

The images below show the uptake of C11 labelled Cocaine in two different brain areas across three different Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).