[¹¹C]yohimbine: watching noradrenaline compete

An interactive teaching video for students and researchers: how the PET tracer [¹¹C]yohimbine is used to study α₂-adrenoceptors and noradrenaline, from pigs and rats to patients. Five questions pause the video and ask you to decide what the lab should do next.

One tracer from pigs and rats to patients · 18 min 41 s · 5 decisions for you · narrated · captions available

In interactive mode the video pauses at each Pause & Think. Answer with a tap, a click or keys 1–4, or press Read aloud to hear the question and its answers; 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, so pause there to discuss.

Facilitator guide

How to use this in class

Live session (15–25 min)

Play full-screen in classroom mode. At each violet Pause & Think card, pause during the 10-second countdown, let students vote, then resume: the narrator reveals and explains the answer.

Self-study

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

Real, redrawn or schematic?

Images marked REAL are the lab's published figures, shown with full credit. Charts marked REDRAWN are drawn from numbers in a named paper. Synapses, brains and timelines are SCHEMATIC; the closing scene is marked as a hypothesis. Published results only. A strip in the top-right corner names the species (rat, pig, minipig, human) and method of the data on screen.

Learning objectives

By the end, students should be able to…

Explain what [¹¹C]yohimbine binds (α₂-adrenoceptors) and why there is no empty reference region in the animal brain.
Describe how species shapes a tracer's use: P-glycoprotein in rats, no metabolism in pigs, slow entry and genotype-dependent metabolism in people.
Explain endogenous competition (the raclopride precedent) and how drug challenges, nerve stimulation and simultaneous microdialysis tested it for noradrenaline.
Weigh PET against autoradiography (binding measured in vivo versus binding measured in washed tissue sections), and judge what a lower or higher binding means in patients and disease models.

Run sheet

Chapters and timings

Time	Chapter	Key points

Question bank

The five decisions

Evidence base

References

Every factual claim in the narration was checked against the primary literature before recording. Lab results come from published Landau Lab papers only.

Credits

Figures, simulations and sound

Asset	Type	Source & licence