Rapid progress in neuroimaging technologies fuels central nervous system translational medicine

Central nervous system (CNS) drug discovery suffers from high attrition rates; translational neuroscience approaches aiming to reduce these high rates include the use of brain imaging technologies. However, there is a need to better understand what methods are being used and for what diseases and purposes. Our analysis of the literature found that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) were the neuroimaging techniques used most often in clinical trials for the most prevalent CNS diseases: Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), depression, and schizophrenia. Moreover, the number of initiated clinical trials using MRI, PET, and SPECT increased over the period 1981-2021. Such insights indicate that the significant increase in the use of neuroimaging studies could decrease the attrition of novel drug candidates in late clinical development.