Related Experiment Videos
Positron emission tomography using pyruvate-1-11C in two cases of mitochondrial encephalomyopathy
M Toyoda1, N Sakuragawa, Y Arai
1Department of Child Neurology, National Center Hospital for Mental, Nervous and Muscular Disorders, Tokyo, Japan.
Abstract:
Positron emission tomography (PET) using pyruvate-1-11C was carried out to investigate the in vivo metabolism of pyruvate in the brains of patients with mitochondrial encephalomyopathy and Leigh's disease. Two epileptic patients were studied as control subjects. Radioactivity was eliminated from the brain tissue of the epileptic patients soon after injection of pyruvate-1-11C. PET images of mitochondrial encephalomyopathy patients showed an increase in radioactivity in the cerebral cortex, basal ganglia and thalamus, with elimination of radioactivity being slower than that of epileptic patients. One patient with Leigh's disease showed similar PET images. PET using pyruvate-1-11C is useful for the evaluation of mitochondrial energy metabolism in the brain.