Development of in vivo imaging of protective and detrimental microglial activities for treating mental disorders

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26670538
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Psychiatric science
• Research Institution: Hamamatsu University School of Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Yasuomi Ouchi 浜松医科大学, 光尖端医学教育研究センター, 教授 (40436978)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: ミクログリア活性

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The previous in vivo studies on microglial activity mainly described the features of inflammatory microglial activation, which did not allow detection of which was contributory to neuroinflammation in diseases, protective or inflammatory microglia. So, a new method that could monitor microglial activation using imaging technique was longed for to elucidate the contribution of microglial activation in diseases.
We tried to develop a new monitoring system by MRI and PET about dynamic aspects of microglial activation, namely, development of a MR probe that depended on the amount of fractalkine produced and a PET CB2R ligand imaging for activated microglia. Although an MR probe was not satisfactory, the CB2R probe was able to depict some level of microglial activation. However, a more sensitive probe was expected for illustration of two types of activated microglia.

Free Research Field

神経画像学