Biomedical Imaging in Experimental Neuroscience PDF

Preface

The goals of experimental neuroscience research are fundamentally to gain mechanistic understanding of the pathology of disease in order to identify appropriate targets for potential pharmacological intervention and evaluation of putative therapies. With the advances in gene manipulation and transgene technologies, we have unprecedented ability to generate animal models of disease that more closely mimic the clinical conditions.

Noninvasive techniques capable of investigating altered pathophysiologies are now of paramount importance. Conventional methods that rely on histological and/or immunohistochemical staining demand the selective sacrifices of large cohorts of animals and include inherent assumptions of population homogeneity. Noninvasive imaging offers the obvious attractions of reducing sample sizes, use of individual data for internal baseline and control purposes, and consequent advantages in statistical power. It also offers opportunities to investigate behavior in individual animals that perhaps deviates from population norm expectations, i.e., to identify new and unanticipated behaviors.

Noninvasive imaging also offers accessibility to specific and dynamic physiological interactions that are amenable only at whole organism or system level, and cannot be addressed via single-time point, single-mechanism, ex vivo analysis. Advances in imaging methodologies provide increased physiological specificity at tissue, vascular, cellular, metabolic, and electrophysiological levels. Experimental neuroscience seeks to validate these specificities for their ultimate clinical value. On the other hand, once validated, these specificities can be expanded to characterize tissue, identify target pharmaceutical approaches, and evaluate novel mode-ofaction- specific therapeutics.

This book is motivated by the rapidly advancing technologies of noninvasive imaging, the parallel rapid progress in developing genomic and other targeted pharmaceuticals, and the ongoing demand for greater understanding of diseases and therapies. Our target audience includes the biologists with interests in how advances in biomedical imaging may augment their in vivo research endeavors and clinical practitioners who seek deeper insights into the association between imaging results and disease pathophysiology.

We would like to thank the following for their assistance in preparing material for this book and their patience throughout this project: Evelyn Berry and Alison Bruce for help with manuscript preparation; and Simon Williams, Annie Ogasawara, Jed Ross, Joan Greve, Hope Steinmetz, Adrienne Ross, Kai Barck, and Lisa Bernstein for their support and patience. We are grateful for all our collaborators that provided data and illustrations - often at short notice! Finally, we thank our wives and children for their encouragement and tolerance.