{"doi":"10.1162/imag_a_00397","title":"Age- and sex-related differences in human α4β2* nicotinic acetylcholine receptor binding evaluated with [18F]nifene PET","abstract":"Abstract Neuronal α4β2* nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are stimulated by nicotine and are associated with tobacco dependence. [18F]Nifene is a PET radiotracer with high specificity for α4β2* nAChRs that can be used to investigate nAChR distribution in the human brain in vivo. In this study, we investigate the dependence of sex and age on the binding of [18F]nifene in nonsmoking healthy human participants. Cognitively normal participants (n = 31) were recruited into older versus younger and male versus female cohorts to investigate sex and age differences in [18F]nifene binding. Distribution volume ratios (DVRs) were calculated for brain regions with known nAChR expression and compared using a multiparameter linear regression model. There was a significant association between age and decreasing thalamic DVR (p = 0.01), with the most notable difference coming from the anterior nucleus of the thalamus (p < 0.001). Outside of the thalamus, a higher [18F]nifene DVR was observed with increasing age in the cerebellar grey matter (p = 0.01). No significant sex differences were observed using our linear model after multi-comparison correction. These results support including age in the experimental design and analysis of the α4β2* nAChR system in research and clinical applications.","journal":"Imaging Neuroscience","year":2024,"id":464504,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9544,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":584165,"name":"Jihoon Choi","orcid":"0000-0002-0844-6547","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":684015,"name":"Alexandra H DiFilippo","orcid":"0000-0003-0003-8968","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1267458,"name":"Max McLachlan","orcid":"0000-0003-1801-7233","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1295818,"name":"Brecca Bettcher","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":459245,"name":"Matthew Zammit","orcid":"0000-0001-8966-8397","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":290562,"name":"Charles K. Stone","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":270464,"name":"Dana Tudorascu","orcid":"0000-0003-4675-3692","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":579729,"name":"Jogeshwar Mukherjee","orcid":"0000-0003-1009-877X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":861881,"name":"Bradley Christian","orcid":"0000-0001-5072-3512","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1025680,"name":"Andrew K McVea","orcid":"0009-0008-4525-2793","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":60,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:04:42.082401Z","pmid":"40677753","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}