News Releases & Research Results Development of a PET imaging agent that facilitates the development of therapeutic drugs for dementia - Promoting pathological analysis, early diagnosis, and new drug development by visualizing tau pathologies in the brain -

The results of research and development conducted by Technical Staff Kenji Tagai, Principal Researcher Yuhei Takado, and Principal Researcher Hitoshi Shimada of the Department of Functional Brain Imaging, National Institute of Radiological Sciences/National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology.

• Next-generation tau PET imaging agent “F-PM-PBB3” that allows early detection and differentiation of various dementias, such as Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration, by visualizing tau deposits in the brain was successfully developed for the first time in the world.
• PET diagnosis with “F-PM-PBB3,” produced through the research and development, allows objective evaluation of the severity of various cognitive symptoms and should be useful in determining the effects of new therapeutic drugs.

This project was conducted with the support of Brain Mapping by Integrated Neurotechnologies for Disease Studies (Brain/MINDS) by AMED.

The results were published online in the American scientific journal Neuron on October 30.

Tagai K., et al. High-contrast in-vivo imaging of tau pathologies in Alzheimer’s and non-Alzheimer’s disease tauopathies Neuron
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2020.09.042