Fluorine-18 Radiolabeled PET Tracers for Imaging Monoamine Transporters: Dopamine, Serotonin, and Norepinephrine

This article focuses on the development of fluorine-18 radiolabeled PET tracers for imaging the dopamine transporter, serotonin transporter, and norepinephrine transporter. All successful dopamine transporter PET tracers reported to date are members of the 3β-phenyltropane class and are synthesized from cocaine. Currently available carbon-11 serotonin transporter PET tracers come from both the diphenylsulfide and 3β-phenylnortropane class, but so far only the nortropanes have found success with fluorine-18 derivatives. Norepinephrine transporter imaging has so far used carbon-11 and fluorine-18 derivatives of reboxetine but because of defluorination of the fluorine-18 derivatives further research is still necessary.