Abstract

Over the last decade the interest towards functional neuroimaging has gradually increased, especially in the field of neurodegenerative diseases. At present, diagnosis of dementia is mostly clinical. Numerous modalities of neuroimaging are today available, each of them allowing a different aspect of neurodegeneration to be investigated.

Although during the last periodmany have predicted a forthcoming disappearance of SPECT imaging in favour of the PET imaging, many new radiotracers SPECT, dual-SPECT tracers techniques and receptor targeting designed radiopharmaceuticals are currently at study.

Besides, last decade has also assisted to the development of new SPECT imaging systems, most of them integrated with other imaging modalities (MRI, CT, ultrasound techniques), granting improved imaging capabilities.

All these improved conditions, especially appealing for the neuroimaging, together with the new radiopharmaceuticals in development may renovate the interest for SPECT clinical applications.

Keywords: SPECT, neuroimaging, radiopharmaceuticals, dementia, functional imaging, 99mTc.