The technology paves the way to much faster diagnosis, more targeted treatments and innovative brain research. “It opens new perspectives for disorders such as ALS, Parkinson’s disease and dementia, as it allows us to study and monitor early processes in brain nuclei and circuits in much greater detail.”
The new NeuroExplorer PET-scanner is located at UZ Leuven and was purchased by KU Leuven Research and Development (LRD). The device uses low-level radioactive tracers to visualise subtle biological signals and chemical changes in the brain. It has a resolution up to twenty times higher than that of conventional PET scanners. For the first time, doctors can therefore observe brain processes in living people that until now they could only study post-mortem.
Faster development of new therapies
The technology offers possibilities for identifying new biomarkers: measurable characteristics that indicate a condition early in the disease process, such as specific proteins in the brain. By studying such processes in living people, researchers gain insight into the earliest stages of brain diseases.
The difference in clarity is like a short-sighted person putting on glasses for the first time
prof. dr. Koen Van Laere
The NeuroExplorer also enables imaging in complex central areas such as the brainstem and the spinal cord. This allows critical brain nuclei and the connections between them to be examined directly, for example in conditions such as ALS, Parkinson’s disease and dementia, as well as in psychiatric disorders. In addition, the device offers the possibility of non-invasively monitoring how drugs reach and affect their target in the brain. This can accelerate and refine the development of new therapies.
World first in patient care
Over the past few months, UZ Leuven has been using the NeuroExplorer in an ongoing comparative clinical trial to assess its added value compared to existing PET scanners. The study is monitoring patients with conditions such as pituitary tumours, dementia, movement disorders, parathyroid problems, head and neck cancers, and vasculitis.
A number of other international research centres have already started using the technology, but UZ Leuven is the first hospital in the world to use the scanner clinically on patients. The initial results are promising and show that the higher resolution provides additional diagnostic information, for example for neurosurgical procedures.
A glimpse into the deepest parts of the brain
Prof. dr. Koen Van Laere, head of the nuclear medicine department at UZ Leuven and department chair Imaging and Pathology at KU Leuven: "The difference in resolution between the NeuroExplorer and a conventional PET scanner is like a short-sighted person putting on glasses for the first time. As a result, we can now detect brain abnormalities in very small brain nuclei and in the brainstem: until now, this has not been possible with any other imaging technique. With this device, we can now examine parts of the brain involved in movement and memory, as well as motivation, mood and sleep. In conditions such as ALS, we can directly study both small brain nuclei and damage to the spinal cord. And for Parkinson’s disease and dementia, too, we can investigate and monitor early processes in the relevant brain nuclei and the connections between them in much greater detail.”
In addition, the doctors are also exploring applications in psychiatry, for example by studying the brain regions involved in impaired information processing in schizophrenia. Because the extremely high resolution sheds new light on what constitutes a normal variation or a symptom of a disease, the brain researchers aim to establish new definitions of what is normal. That is why they are also studying large groups of healthy volunteers of various ages.
The NeuroExplorer was developed by United Imaging Healthcare. Thanks to the close collaboration with the Leuven Brain Institute (KU Leuven) and UZ Leuven, Flanders is among the international pioneers in the use of the technology for both research and clinical applications. There are now more than 30 national and international research projects underway using the device.