IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v16y2025i1d10.1038_s41467-025-58356-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Quantitative PET imaging and modeling of molecular blood-brain barrier permeability

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin J. Chung

    (University of California Davis Health)

  • Yasser G. Abdelhafez

    (University of California Davis Health)

  • Benjamin A. Spencer

    (University of California Davis Health)

  • Terry Jones

    (University of California Davis Health)

  • Quyen Tran

    (University of California Davis Health)

  • Lorenzo Nardo

    (University of California Davis Health)

  • Moon S. Chen

    (University of California Davis Health)

  • Souvik Sarkar

    (University of California Davis Health
    University of California Davis Health)

  • Valentina Medici

    (University of California Davis Health
    University of California Davis Health)

  • Victoria Lyo

    (University of California Davis Health
    University of California Davis Health)

  • Ramsey D. Badawi

    (University of California Davis Health
    University of California at Davis)

  • Simon R. Cherry

    (University of California Davis Health
    University of California at Davis)

  • Guobao Wang

    (University of California Davis Health)

Abstract

Neuroimaging of blood-brain barrier permeability has been instrumental in identifying its broad involvement in neurological and systemic diseases. However, current methods evaluate the blood-brain barrier mainly as a structural barrier. Here we developed a non-invasive positron emission tomography method in humans to measure the blood-brain barrier permeability of molecular radiotracers that cross the blood-brain barrier through its molecule-specific transport mechanism. Our method uses high-temporal resolution dynamic imaging and kinetic modeling for multiparametric imaging and quantification of the blood-brain barrier permeability-surface area product of molecular radiotracers. We show, in humans, our method can resolve blood-brain barrier permeability across three radiotracers and demonstrate its utility in studying brain aging and brain-body interactions in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver inflammation. Our method opens new directions to effectively study the molecular permeability of the human blood-brain barrier in vivo using the large catalogue of available molecular positron emission tomography tracers.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin J. Chung & Yasser G. Abdelhafez & Benjamin A. Spencer & Terry Jones & Quyen Tran & Lorenzo Nardo & Moon S. Chen & Souvik Sarkar & Valentina Medici & Victoria Lyo & Ramsey D. Badawi & Simon R. Ch, 2025. "Quantitative PET imaging and modeling of molecular blood-brain barrier permeability," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-17, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-58356-7
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-58356-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58356-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-025-58356-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-58356-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.