ArticleBrain : a journal of neurology2025
Post-mortem validation of in vivo TSPO PET as a microglial biomarker.
Article in Brain : a journal of neurology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed.
- TSPO-PET binding in vivo reflects increased phagocytic microglia at post mortem in people with frontotemporal dementia.Acta neuropathologica · 2026Article
- Closed-Loop Neuromodulation for Brain Fatigue: From Real-Time Biomarkers to Adaptive Intervention.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Associations Between Nonspecific Blood-Derived Inflammatory Indices and MRI-Derived Frontal Network Degeneration in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.Neurology international · 2026Article
- Astrocyte-Microglia Crosstalk in Post-Hemorrhagic Neurovascular Microenvironment: Mechanistic Nodes, Cross-Stroke Comparisons, and Therapeutic Reprogramming.Translational stroke research · 2026Review
- Neuropathological correlates of imaging in dementia with Lewy bodies.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2026Review
- Understanding neuroinflammation in post-COVID-19 syndrome: biological mechanisms, diagnostic biomarkers, and therapeutic prospects.Translational psychiatry · 2026Review
- Towards a Whole-Body Assessment of Pain Using the 18 kDa Translocator Protein (TSPO) as a Broad-Spectrum Imaging Marker of Inflammation.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Review
- Insights into the complex relationship between pain and imaging-detected structural damage in knee osteoarthritis.Skeletal radiology · 2026Review
- Multi-dimensional decoding of the TSPO signal in animal models of neuroinflammation using fluorescence-conjugated DPA714.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2026Article
- Network-Based Analysis for the Quantification of Brain and Body Immune Axes with Total-Body PET Imaging.Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine · 2026Article
- Network-based disease fingerprinting with neuroinflammation PET imaging.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2026Article
- Non-invasive biomarkers for diagnosis and monitoring of primary mitochondrial diseases.Journal of neurology · 2026Review
- Microglial reactivity predicts hippocampal, but not global, atrophy in cerebral small vessel disease.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Comparing and combining TSPO-PET tracers in tauopathies.European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging · 2026Article
- Inflammatory alterations mediate tau-associated neurodegeneration.Brain communications · 2026Article
- Nutritional substrates and microglial metabolic fitness in brain aging and Alzheimer's disease: from lipid handling to TREM2-linked translation.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Review
- Imaging biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases: advances and challenges.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Review
- Longitudinal biomarker studies in human neuroimaging: capturing biological change of Alzheimer's pathology.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2025Review
- Neuroinflammation PET and long-term cognition and survival in symptomatic Alzheimer's disease.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2025Article
- Network-based disease fingerprinting with neuroinflammation PET imaging.Research square · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
15 authors.
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Abstract
Neuroinflammation is a feature of many neurodegenerative diseases and is quantified in vivo by PET imaging with radioligands for the translocator protein (TSPO, e.g. 11C-PK11195). TSPO radioligand binding correlates with clinical severity and predicts clinical progression. However, the cellular substrate of altered TSPO binding is controversial and requires neuropathological validation. We used progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) as a demonstrator condition, to test the hypothesis that 11C-PK11195 PET reflects microglial changes. We included people with PSP-Richardson's syndrome who had undergone 11C-PK11195 PET in life (n = 8). In post-mortem brain tissue from the same participants, we characterized cell-type specific TSPO expression and quantified microgliosis in eight cortical and 11 subcortical regions. Double-immunofluorescence labelling for TSPO and cell markers showed TSPO expression in microglia, astrocytes and endothelial cells. Microglial (and not astrocytic) TSPO levels were higher in donors with PSP compared to control subjects (n = 3), and correlated with changes in microglial burden. There was a significant positive correlation between regional 11C-PK11195 binding potential ante-mortem and the burden of post-mortem CD68+ phagocytic microglia, as well as microglial TSPO levels. We conclude that in vivo disease-related changes in 11C-PK11195 binding is largely driven by microglia and can be interpreted as a biomarker of microglia-mediated neuroinflammation in tauopathies.
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