PET imaging predicts future body weight and cocaine preference

• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.08.028
• Publication Date: 2011-08-29T06:02:16Z
• Authors: Michael Michaelides; Panayotis K. Thanos; Ronald Kim; Jacob Cho; Mala Ananth; Gene-Jack Wang; Nora D. Volkow
• Keywords: Male; 0301 basic medicine; Body Weight; Administration, Oral; Corpus Striatum; Rats; Receptors, Dopamine; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Food Preferences; 03 medical and health sciences; Cocaine; Raclopride; Positron-Emission Tomography; Animals; Radiopharmaceuticals

Deficits in dopamine D2/D3 receptor (D2R/D3R) binding availability using PET imaging have been reported in obese humans and rodents. Similar deficits have been reported in cocaine-addicts and cocaine-exposed primates. We found that D2R/D3R binding availability negatively correlated with measures of body weight at the time of scan (ventral striatum), at 1 (ventral striatum) and 2 months (dorsal and ventral striatum) post scan in rats. Cocaine preference was negatively correlated with D2R/D3R binding availability 2 months (ventral striatum) post scan. Our findings suggest that inherent deficits in striatal D2R/D3R signaling are related to obesity and drug addiction susceptibility and that ventral and dorsal striatum serve dissociable roles in maintaining weight gain and cocaine preference. Measuring D2R/D3R binding availability provides a way for assessing susceptibility to weight gain and cocaine abuse in rodents and given the translational nature of PET imaging, potentially primates and humans.