TAU-PET IMAGING OF BRAIN DAMAGE IN HEAD INJURY

Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging has been broadly used in the study of brain damage for a long time. However, PET has been mostly used for the assessment and detection of neural activity after brain damage. Tau proteins play a significant role in a variety of degenerative neurological conditions. Post-mortem neuropathology studies of victims of repeated and severe head trauma have defined a unique spatial expression of neurological tauopathies in these individuals known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The current review assesses the role of tau in head injury, the state of tau radiotracer development, and the potential clinical value of tau-PET derived from head injury studies. There are variations in the binding patterns between different tau radiotracers. Therefore, the present work is commenced with a general review of TBI and CTE, followed by the chronic and acute pathophysiological consequences of TBI. In the following, beta-amyloid, glycolysis, and tau protein radiotracers are assessed critically, considering the most recent and available imaging studies. Considering the scientific relevance of these radiotracers to the molecular processes concerning Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and CTE and the inclusive evidence of radiotracer selectivity and specificity, this work will measure the positive and negative factors of every radiotracer. Nevertheless, there is consistent uptake in certain regions of the brain that has been observed across different studies. However, aberrant binding is expected given the variation in small studies and potential off-site radiotracer binding.