Recent advances in PET radioligands for imaging of cerebral nicotinic acetylcholine receptors

There exist many studies on the radioligands for imaging of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in the human brain and the most common one is the radioligand binding to α4β2-nAChRs,the main subtype of cerebral nAChRs.There are few data published in the literature on the radioligands for the imaging of α7-nAChRs,another important subtype of cerebral nAChRs.This review summarizes recent work on PET radioligands for the imaging of cerebral nAChRs. Key words: Ligands;  Receptors, cholinergic;  Nicotine;  Tomography, emission-computed; Trends