RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Assessment of serotonin transporter binding in suicide attempters using PET and [11C]DASB JF Journal of Nuclear Medicine JO J Nucl Med FD Society of Nuclear Medicine SP 1915 OP 1915 VO 55 IS supplement 1 A1 Park, Hyun Soo A1 Lee, Byung Chul A1 Moon, Byung Seok A1 Lee, Dong Yun A1 Ha, Kyooseob A1 Chang, Jae Seung A1 Kim, Sang Eun YR 2014 UL http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/55/supplement_1/1915.abstract AB 1915 Objectives Abnormal serotonin transporter (SERT) function is thought to play a role in the pathophysiology of suicidal behavior. And previous studies have implicated the striatum in suicidal behavior. In the present study, we compared striatal SERT binding between the suicide attempters (SA) and control subjects (NC) using PET and [11C]DASB. Methods NC and SA underwent PET scanning after intravenous injection of [11C]DASB (injected dose = 756.3 ± 111.1 MBq) to quantify in vivo cerebral SERT binding. The SERT binding potential (BPND) of [11C]DASB was calculated by use of a multilinear reference tissue model with the cerebellum as a reference region. Volumes of interest were defined on each subject’s brain MRI. The striatum was subdivided into the limbic, associative and sensorimotor subregions. Results SA had increased SERT BPND in the limbic (14.8%, P = 0.0237), associative (11.7%, P = 0.3419) and sensorimotor (13.7%, P = 0.2278) subregions of the striatum compared to NC. Furthermore, midbrain SERT BPND was significantly positively associated with the associative (r = 0.64, P = 0.05), limbic (r = 0.70, P = 0.02) and sensorimotor (r = 0.67, P = 0.03) subregions of the striatum in NC, but those correlations were not significant in SA. Conclusions Our data demonstrated that SA had increased SERT function in the limbic striatum, involved in emotional and motivational aspect of behavior, and also indicate an impaired relationship in SERT function between midbrain and striatum in SA. These results may help understand neurobiological substrates of SA, regardless of psychopathologies such as depression and bipolar disorder.