Imaging is a key area of translational research that provides a unique bridge from the laboratory to the clinic as the same techniques and technologies can applied across the various phases of drug development. Neuroimaging is now central to research and drug development in the neurosciences since it can be used to detect the pharmacological and physiological consequences of drug action within the living brain. Today neuroimaging is used primarily as a biomarker to help optimize our decision-making processes. Neuroimaging tools and technologies can be used to select drug candidates, confirm they engage their targets, link occupancy to biology and then, in a translational fashion, be used to help design the best clinical studies that truly test therapeutic hypotheses.

"Drug development today needs to balance agility, speed, and risk in defining probability of success for molecules, mechanisms, and therapeutic concepts. New techniques such as fMRI promise to be part of a sequence that could transform drug development. Although numerous review articles exist that discuss the use of imaging in drug development, no one source is available that combines the various techniques and includes a discussion of disease mapping.Imaging in CNS Drug Discovery and Development, Implications for Disease and Therapy will serve to distill the most salient developments in the use of imaging in drug development and disease mapping. It will launch evolving concepts that integrate new imaging technologies and paradigms with molecular medicine and molecular profiling ("monics") as well as consider the ethical issues that arise as a result of disease or state diagnosis and the use of imaging in the public eye."

Background.- The Challenges and Opportunities.- Imaging of CNS Systems: Importance for Drug Development.- Imaging Approaches.- Anatomical Imaging: Volumetric Analysis.- Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Drug Development.- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Drug Development.- Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Pharmacological Systems.- Molecular Imaging: Basic Approaches.- Chemical Imaging: Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy: The Basics.- Imaging CNS Drug Action.- Animal Imaging.- Incorporating Functional MRI into Clinical Pharmacology Trials.- Imaging Placebo Responses in the Brain.- Structural Imaging of Drug Actions in Neurodegenerative Diseases.- Molecular Imaging of the CNS: Drug Actions.- Imaging CNS Disease States.- Translational MRI in CNS Drug Discovery.- In Vivo Mouse Imaging and Spectroscopy in Drug Discovery.- Neuroimaging in Understanding Chronic Pain Mechanisms and the Development of New Therapies.- Neuroimaging Human Drug Addiction.- Anxiety: Uncover Roles of Stress Related Genes by Imaging Genetics.- Imaging CNS Disease States: Alzheimer's Disease.- Brain Development and CNS Plasticity.- Imaging in CNS Disease States: PTSD.- Integrative Processes.- Integrative Processes: Neuroscience Clinical Imaging Biomarkers.- Reasons to Believe: The Potential of Imaging in CNS Drug Development.