Abstract

Positron Emission tomography (PET) is a method for imaging the concentration of positron-emitting radioisotopes introduced into the body of a patient. Unfortunately, like other forms of emission computed tomography (ECT), PET is plagued by serious technical problems that have severely restricted its potential in unlocking the answers to difficult questions in brain research. In particular, two problems inherent to ECT methods have hampered progress in PET: 1) Patient safety considerations and detector response characteristics impose limits on the permissible radiation dose, therefore PET images are invariably severely quantum-noise-limited; and 2) The resolution of PET images is extremely poor owing primarily to the size of the scintillation detectors used in the data-acquisition step.

© 1992 Optical Society of America