{"id":5399,"date":"2018-04-08T07:24:03","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T07:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/?p=5399"},"modified":"2018-04-08T07:24:03","modified_gmt":"2018-04-08T07:24:03","slug":"new-imaging-agent-may-guide-therapy-for-brain-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/2018\/04\/08\/new-imaging-agent-may-guide-therapy-for-brain-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"New imaging agent may guide therapy for brain diseases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have developed a new imaging agent that could help guide and assess treatments for people with various neurological diseases, including Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s and Multiple Sclerosis (MS).<!--more-->The agent, which is used in PET scans, targets receptors in nerve cells in the brain that are involved in learning and memory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe significance of the work lies in the fact that we have for the first time developed a useful PET \u2018radioligand\u2019 (a radioactive bio-chemical substance) that can be applied to image the \u2018GluN2B\u2019 receptor subunit of the \u2018NMDA\u2019 receptor complex in humans,\u201d said co-author Simon M. Ametamey from the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.<\/p>\n<p>For the study, published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, the agent was used in live rats to investigate the dose and effectiveness of \u201celiprodil\u201d\u2014a drug that blocks the \u201cNMDA GluN2B\u201d receptor.<\/p>\n<p>PET scans with the new \u201cradioligand\u201d successfully showed that the receptors are fully occupied at neuro-protective doses of \u201celiprodil\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese results mean that a new radio-pharmaceutical tool is now available for studying brain disorders such as Alzheimer\u2019s disease, Parkinson\u2019s disease and MS, among others,\u201d Ametamey said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IANS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Picture source: Alamy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have developed a new imaging agent that could help guide and assess treatments for people with various neurological diseases, including Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s and Multiple Sclerosis (MS).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5401,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399\/revisions\/5401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}