# Ultra High Resolution Brain PET Scanner for in-vivo Autoradiography Imaging

> **NIH NIH U01** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2020 · $311,750

## Abstract

Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an irreversible neurodegenerative disease and the most common cause of
dementia in elderly adults. Drug development for AD has been slow so far, in part due to the inability of
detecting AD lesions in the brain regions that degenerate first in the early stages of the disease. The
progression of AD has been strongly linked to the accumulation of neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), which first
appear in the locus coeruleus and then spread to the transentorhinal cortex and finally to the neo-cortex. With
the advent of selective tau tracers, NFT distributions can now be characterized in vivo by Positron Emission
Tomography (PET). For the newly developed 18F-MK-6240 tau tracer, higher uptakes were observed in medial
temporal and neocortical brain regions in AD patients as well as non-specific uptake in the meninges. Though
the SAVANT will offer unparalleled spatial resolution performance for a human scanner, quantitative accuracy
and detection precision of NFT distributions will still be impacted by partial volume effects. It is thus clear that
improvements in resolution are needed to extract the pathophysiological information present in a 18F-MK-6240
scan and allow detection of early NFTs associated with very prodromal AD. The goal of this administrative
supplement is to develop, validate and optimize Bayesian reconstruction methodology leveraging super-
resolution principles to enable detection of early NFTs in the regions at the origin of tau pathology in AD. The
resulting improvement in image quality has the potential to significantly improve very early AD staging,
providing new opportunities to assess anti-tau therapies and to optimize selection of participants for clinical
trials.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10117728
- **Project number:** 3U01EB027003-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Georges El Fakhri
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $311,750
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2018-09-30 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10117728

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10117728, Ultra High Resolution Brain PET Scanner for in-vivo Autoradiography Imaging (3U01EB027003-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10117728. Licensed CC0.

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