Advance and Prospect of Positron Emission Tomography in Alzheimer's disease research.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease which is continually increasing in prevalence and is attracting more and more attention. Based on the traditional diagnostic framework, imaging biomarkers have shown great prospect in diagnosis. Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, as a novel biomarker of AD, evaluates the progress and changes at the molecular level and develops many radiotracers corresponding to the hallmark biological targets. Compounds labeled with radioactive elements are transported to specific regions or combine with specific substances such as amyloid β(Aβ), paired helical filaments (PHFs) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), which makes different radioactive uptake in different brain regions of AD. This review will set forth 18F-FDG PET imaging, Aβ-PET imaging, Tau-PET imaging, neuroinflammatory PET imaging, neurotransmitter PET imaging and some other emerging PET imaging. In clinical practices, PET performed with other medical imaging tools shows a great prospect.