Imaging inflammation in the brain in healthy volunteers

Summary

Neurodegenerative diseases (including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia) are very common, and occur when cells in the brain or nervous system lose function over time. Diseases such as these cause significant disability and distress for patients and their families, and as more people are living longer, it means the number of people living with these diseases is increasing. At present we have medications that can help with some of the symptoms of these diseases, but we do not have any treatments that can slow down or stop their progression.

These diseases all involve a loss of nerve cells in the brain and recent research has suggested that inflammation in the brain can contribute to this loss. We can investigate whether this is the case by using a special type of brain scanning called positron emission tomography (PET) in combination with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which can measure the amount of inflammation in the brain in people living with these diseases and how this changes with new drug treatments. In order to interpret the results of these scans, we also need PET/MRI brain scans from healthy individuals so we can measure the amount of ‘normal’ inflammation.

In this study we would like to perform PET/MRI brain scans on healthy individuals. This particular type of PET scanning only works in a certain proportion of the population with a specific genetic make-up. The genetic change that we will select in this study only affects how the PET scanning will work and does not change the risk of developing any specific medical conditions. With the help of the NIHR Bioresource we can select participants for this study based on their genetic make-up. The combination of information from healthy individuals and patients has the potential to improve the treatment options available for patients living with neurodegenerative diseases.