PET in Psychiatry · a lecture for medical students

Seeing Chemistry

15 min 41 s · 5 Pause & Think questions · narrated · captions available
In interactive mode the video pauses at each Pause & Think. Answer with a click or keys 1–4 — the narrated explanation then continues automatically after a short countdown (press Esc to stay on the question). Classroom mode plays straight through (each question has a 10-second on-screen countdown — pause there to discuss).
Facilitator guide

How to use this in class

Live lecture (15–25 min)

Play full-screen in classroom mode. At each violet Pause & Think card, pause during the 10-second countdown, let students vote (hands, clickers or a poll), then resume — the narrator reveals and explains the answer.

Self-study / flipped classroom

Share this page. Interactive mode pauses automatically, records answers locally in the browser and flows straight on into the narrated explanation. Use the discussion prompts below for the follow-up seminar.

What is real and what is simulated

Scans marked REAL are published patient/volunteer images (credited). PET maps marked SIMULATED are illustrative patterns built on real anatomy (MNI152 template, Harvard-Oxford atlas, FreeSurfer fsaverage). Photographic scenes are AI illustrations grounded in real reference photos.
Learning objectives

By the end, students should be able to…

  1. Explain how PET turns a radioactive decay into an image (β⁺ decay, annihilation, coincidence detection, lines of response, reconstruction, time of flight, attenuation correction).
  2. Choose a tracer for a clinical or research question, reasoning from target and half-life.
  3. Interpret binding potential, dopamine-release paradigms and receptor occupancy, including the antipsychotic therapeutic window.
  4. Recognise the FDG and amyloid PET patterns that matter where psychiatry meets neurology (AD, bvFTD, DLB).
Run sheet

Chapters and timings

TimeChapterKey points
Question bank

The five Pause & Think questions

Evidence base

Key references

Every factual claim in the narration was checked against the primary literature before recording. PMIDs and DOIs were verified to resolve to the cited papers.
    Credits

    Images, anatomy and sound

    AssetTypeSource & licence