On Oct. 2, 2020, Yale scientists will build the next-generation human brain PET scanner, the NeuroeXplorer (NX), to be installed at the Yale Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Center in two years.

Funded by a five-year, $10.2 million BRAIN Initiative grant from the National Institutes of Health, the NX will replace the Yale PET Center’s HRRT system, which is currently the highest resolution brain scanner in the world.

The NX will have a ten-fold higher sensitivity than the HRRT scanner and will produce much higher quality images. These improvements will lead to dramatic expansions in the scope of brain PET applications for the study of the healthy and diseased brain, such as imaging neurodegeneration at the earliest stages of disease.

The project is a collaboration between the Department of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging at Yale School of Medicine, Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science, the University of California, Davis, and United Imaging, a provider of advanced medical imaging and radiotherapy equipment.

PET is an advanced technology that provides quantitative images of the distribution of biological and pharmacological targets in the body using radioactive molecules known as radiopharmaceuticals. The Yale PET Center is noted for its large array of radiopharmaceuticals and its focus on brain imaging.