A new window into the development of Alzheimer’s disease may have been opened up by researchers in Germany who have combined two non-invasive imaging techniques to study the formation of proteinaceous deposits known as β-amyloid plaques. Using both PET and MRI, the researchers followed the development of amyloid plaques in the brains of mice that have a similar disease, and found a direct connection between the plaques’ formation in cerebral blood vessels and reduced blood flow in the brain (Nature Medicine 20 1485). {read more here}

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) studies have, for the first time, identified deficits in prefrontal dopamine release in patients with schizophrenia, researchers report. {read more here}

Using a PET scanner, researchers have seen that in patients who received the growth factor the signaling of dopamine not only stayed at the same level, but even increased. {read more here}

Medicare’s push to link payment for advanced diagnostic imaging to appropriate use criteria and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s (MedPAC) site-neutral payment recommendation topped the agenda at the American College of Cardiology’s (ACC) most recent legislative conference. {read more here}