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Is Correction for Age Necessary in SPECT or PET of the Central Serotonin Transporter in Young, Healthy Adults?

¹ Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany; ² Department of Nuclear Medicine, University School of Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany; and ³ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Correspondence: For correspondence or reprints contact: Ralph Buchert, PhD, Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, D-20246 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: buchert{at}uke.uni-hamburg.de

PET and SPECT have suggested that there is an age-related decline of up to 10% per decade in the availability of brain serotonin transporter (SERT) in healthy subjects, starting as early as the age of 20 y. The aim of the present study was to verify these findings in young subjects. Methods: The equilibrium specific-to-nonspecific partition coefficient V''₃ of the SERT ligand ¹¹C-(+)McN5652 was obtained for 29 healthy subjects aged 18–33 y. V''₃ was tested for age dependence by linear regression analysis using both a volumes-of-interest approach and voxel-based statistical parametric mapping. The sex of the subject and the season of year were considered nuisance variables. Results: Age had no significant effect on V''₃. The power for the detection of an age-related decline in V''₃ of the magnitude reported previously was 0.917. Conclusion: These findings indicate that age is not a relevant confounding factor for SERT availability as measured by ¹¹C-(+)McN5652 PET in healthy adults up to the age of about 35 y.

Key Words: serotonin transporter • age • PET • (+)McN5652

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