In vivo cholinergic system integrity and cognition using [18F]‐FEOBV PET in healthy postmenopausal women: a pilot study

Women are at a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and a possible reason for this may be the effects of estrogen depletion and cholinergic system activity following menopause. The investigational radiotracer [18F]‐fluoroethoxybenzovesamicol (FEOBV) can assess in vivo cholinergic integrity, as the tracer binds to the vesicular cholinergic transporter at the synapse. FEOBV has previously shown cholinergic system decline in AD patients. The present study is an investigation of cholinergic system integrity in a sample of cognitively normal postmenopausal women, aged 50‐70 years that were part of a larger study examining cholinergic compensation following menopause. We predicted that higher FEOBV standardized uptake value ratios (SUVR) would be associated with larger basal forebrain cholinergic volumes, lower levels of amyloid SUVR, and better cognitive performance as measured by the RBANS.