PET/MRI of central nervous system: current status and future perspective

Abstract

Imaging plays an increasingly important role in the early diagnosis, prognosis prediction and therapy response evaluation of central nervous system (CNS) diseases. The newly emerging hybrid positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI) can perform “one-stop-shop” evaluation, including anatomic, functional, biochemical and metabolic information, even at the molecular level, for personalised diagnoses and treatments of CNS diseases. However, there are still several problems to be resolved, such as appropriate PET detectors, attenuation correction and so on. This review will introduce the basic physical principles of PET/MRI and its potential clinical applications in the CNS. We also provide the future perspectives for this field. Key Points: • PET/MRI can simultaneously provide anatomic, functional, biochemical and metabolic information. • PET/MRI has promising potential in various central nervous system diseases. • Research on the future implementation of PET/MRI is challenging and encouraging.