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Abstract
Stimulant use can trigger a neuroimmune response and render the central nervous system vulnerable by activating microglia and leading to cell migration, pro-inflammatory factor production, and reactive oxygen and nitrogen secretion. Activated microglia leads to the expression of TSPO, a 18kDa translocator protein formerly denoted as the peripheral benzodiazepine receptor (PBR), which can be utilized as a target to index neuroinflammation. The objective of this thesis was to explore the feasibility of using standard uptake value (SUV) and pseudo-reference region modeling for PET quantification. The regions of interest (ROIs) were middle frontal gyrus, ventral striatum, and amygdala. SUV data was acquired directly from PET sequences. Non-displaceable binding potential (BPND) data was derived using the simplified reference tissue model (SRTM), with cerebellar gray matter as the pseudo-reference region.