The structure of the serotonin system: A PET imaging study

Neuroimage. 2020 Jan 15:205:116240. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116240. Epub 2019 Oct 7.

Abstract

The human brain atlas of the serotonin (5-HT) system does not conform with commonly used parcellations of neocortex, since the spatial distribution of homogeneous 5-HT receptors and transporter is not aligned with such brain regions. This discrepancy indicates that a neocortical parcellation specific to the 5-HT system is needed. We first outline issues with an existing parcellation of the 5-HT system, and present an alternative parcellation derived from brain MR- and high-resolution PET images of five different 5-HT targets from 210 healthy controls. We then explore how well this new 5-HT parcellation can explain mRNA levels of all 5-HT genes. The parcellation derived here represents a characterization of the 5-HT system which is more stable and explains the underlying 5-HT molecular imaging data better than other atlases, and may hence be more sensitive to capture region-specific changes modulated by 5-HT.

Keywords: Clustering; MRI; PET; Serotonin; Structure; mRNA.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Atlases as Topic*
  • Brain / diagnostic imaging*
  • Brain / metabolism*
  • Cluster Analysis
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
  • Neuroimaging / methods*
  • Positron-Emission Tomography / methods*
  • RNA, Messenger / metabolism
  • Receptors, Serotonin / metabolism*
  • Serotonin / genetics
  • Serotonin / metabolism*

Substances

  • RNA, Messenger
  • Receptors, Serotonin
  • Serotonin