In the context of imaging astrocytes in primary brain tumors (Figure 2), numerous glioma cell lines have been shown to highly express TSPO (Winkeler et al., 2012), and recent studies in rat models of glioma (Buck et al., 2011; Tang et al., 2012; Winkeler et al., 2012) suggest that this approach could be used as a clinical tool to detect brain tumors. This evidence concerns the gene TSPO and brain neoplasm.