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Neuropsychiatry and White Matter Microstructure in Huntington's Disease
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Neuropsychiatry and White Matter Microstructure in Huntington's Disease

Sarah Gregory, Rachael I Scahill, Kiran K Seunarine, Cheryl Stopford, Hui Zhang, Jiaying Zhang, Michael Orth, Alexandra Durr, Raymund A C Roos, Douglas R Langbehn, …
Journal of Huntington's disease, Vol.4(3), pp.239-249
2015
DOI: 10.3233/JHD-150160
PMCID: PMC4684097
PMID: 26443926

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Abstract

Neuropsychiatric symptoms in Huntington's disease (HD) are often evident prior to clinical diagnosis. Apathy is highly correlated with disease progression, while depression and irritability occur at different stages of the disease, both before and after clinical onset. Little is understood about the neural bases of these neuropsychiatric symptoms and to what extent those neural bases are analogous to neuropsychiatric disorders in the general population.\nWe used Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) to investigate structural connectivity between brain regions and any putative microstructural changes associated with depression, apathy and irritability in HD.\nDTI data were collected from 39 premanifest and 45 early-HD participants in the Track-HD study and analysed using whole-brain Tract-Based Spatial Statistics. We used regression analyses to identify white matter tracts whose structural integrity (as measured by fractional anisotropy, FA) was correlated with HADS-depression, PBA-apathy or PBA-irritability scores in gene-carriers and related to cumulative probability to onset (CPO).\nFor those with the highest CPO, we found significant correlations between depression scores and reduced FA in the splenium of the corpus callosum. In contrast, those with lowest CPO demonstrated significant correlations between irritability scores and widespread FA reductions. There was no significant relationship between apathy and FA throughout the whole brain.\nWe demonstrate that white matter changes associated with both depression and irritability in HD occur at different stages of disease progression concomitant with their clinical presentation.
Behavior Rating Scale Depressive Disorder - pathology Humans Huntington Disease - pathology Middle Aged Male White Matter - pathology Diffusion Tensor Imaging - methods Regression Analysis Apathy - physiology Anisotropy Adult Female Surveys and Questionnaires Irritable Mood - physiology

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