BackgroundHuntington's disease (HD) is a fatal inherited neurodegenerative disease, caused by a

BackgroundDeterioration of cognitive functioning is a debilitating symptom in many neurodegenerative diseases, such as Huntington's disease (HD). To date, there are no effective treatments for the cognitive problems associated with HD. Cognitive assessment outcomes will have a central role in the efforts to develop treatments to delay onset or slow the progression of the disease. The TRACK-HD study was designed to build a rational basis for the selection of cognitive outcomes for HD clinical trials.MethodsThere were a total of 349 participants, including controls (n=116), premanifest HD (n=117) and early HD (n=116). A standardised cognitive assessment battery (including nine cognitive tests comprising 12 outcome measures) was administered at baseline, and at 12 and 24 months, and consisted of a combination of paper and pencil and computerised tasks selected to be sensitive to cortical-striatal damage or HD. Each cognitive outcome was analysed separately using a generalised least squares regression model. Results are expressed as effect sizes to permit comparisons between tasks.Results10 of the 12 cognitive outcomes showed evidence of deterioration in the early HD group, relative to controls, over 24 months, with greatest sensitivity in Symbol Digit, Circle Tracing direct and indirect, and Stroop word reading. In contrast, there was very little evidence of deterioration in the premanifest HD group relative to controls.ConclusionsThe findings describe tests that are sensitive to longitudinal cognitive change in HD and elucidate important considerations for selecting cognitive outcomes for clinical trials of compounds aimed at ameliorating cognitive decline in HD.

Objectives: To evaluate in vivo brain metabolite differences in control subjects, individuals with premanifest Huntington disease (pre-HD), and individuals with early HD using 1 H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and to assess their relationship with motor performance.Methods: Eighty-five participants (30 controls, 25 pre-HD, and 30 early HD) were recruited as part of the TRACK-HD study. Eighty-four were scanned at 3 T with single-voxel spectroscopy in the left putamen. Disease burden score was Ͼ220 among pre-HD individuals. Subjects underwent TRACK-HD motor assessment including Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) motor scoring and a novel quantitative motor battery. Statistical analyses included linear regression and one-way analysis of variance. Results:Total N-acetylaspartate (tNAA), a neuronal integrity marker, was lower in early HD (ϳ15%) vs controls (p Ͻ 0.001). N-acetylaspartate (NAA), a constituent of tNAA, was lower in pre-HD (ϳ8%) and early HD (ϳ17%) vs controls (p Ͻ 0.05). The glial cell marker, myo-inositol (mI), was 50% higher in early HD vs pre-HD (p Ͻ 0.01). In early HD, mI correlated with UHDRS motor score (R 2 ϭ 0.23, p Ͻ 0.05). Across pre-HD and early HD, tNAA correlated with performance on a tongue pressure task (R 2 ϭ 0.30, p Ͻ 0.0001) and with disease burden score (R 2 ϭ 0.17, p Ͻ 0.005). Conclusions:We demonstrate lower putaminal tNAA in early HD compared to controls in a crosssection of subjects. A novel biomarker role for mI in early HD was also identified. These findings resolve disagreement in the literature about the role of MRS as an HD biomarker. We conclude that putaminal MRS measurements of NAA and mI are promising potential biomarkers of HD onset and progression. Neurology ® 2010;75:1702-1710 GLOSSARY AD ϭ Alzheimer disease; Cr ϭ creatine; DBS ϭ disease burden score; Glu ϭ glutamate; GPC ϭ glycerophosphocholine; HD ϭ Huntington disease; mI ϭ myo-inositol; MR ϭ magnetic resonance; MRS ϭ 1 H magnetic resonance spectroscopy; NAA ϭ N-acetylaspartate; NAAG ϭ N-acetylaspartylglutamate; PC ϭ phosphocholine; PCr ϭ phosphocreatine; pre-HD ϭ premanifest Huntington disease; SNR ϭ signal-to-noise ratio; tCho ϭ total choline; tCr ϭ total creatine; TE ϭ echo time; tNAA ϭ total N-acetylaspartate; TR ϭ repetition time; UBC ϭ University of British Columbia; UHDRS ϭ Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale; VBM ϭ voxel-based morphometry.The eventual development of Huntington disease (HD) symptoms can be predicted through detection of CAG trinucleotide repeat expansion in the HTT gene 1 in premanifest gene carriers. However, definitive HD biomarkers, able to objectively identify disease onset and progression, are lacking. Evaluation of potential biomarkers are the focus of longitudinal studies such as TRACK-HD 2 and PREDICT-HD. H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) has previously been evaluated as a biomarker modality in premanifest and early HD. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] However, the literature is conflicted with regard to the utility of metabolites such as total N-ac...

BackgroundThe earliest white matter changes in Huntington’s disease are seen before disease onset in the premanifest stage around the striatum, within the corpus callosum, and in posterior white matter tracts. While experimental evidence suggests that these changes may be related to abnormal gene transcription, we lack an understanding of the biological processes driving this regional vulnerability.MethodsHere, we investigate the relationship between regional transcription in the healthy brain, using the Allen Institute for Brain Science transcriptome atlas, and regional white matter connectivity loss at three time points over 24 months in subjects with premanifest Huntington’s disease relative to control participants. The baseline cohort included 72 premanifest Huntington’s disease participants and 85 healthy control participants.ResultsWe show that loss of corticostriatal, interhemispheric, and intrahemispheric white matter connections at baseline and over 24 months in premanifest Huntington’s disease is associated with gene expression profiles enriched for synaptic genes and metabolic genes. Corticostriatal gene expression profiles are predominately associated with motor, parietal, and occipital regions, while interhemispheric expression profiles are associated with frontotemporal regions. We also show that genes with known abnormal transcription in human Huntington’s disease and animal models are overrepresented in synaptic gene expression profiles, but not in metabolic gene expression profiles.ConclusionsThese findings suggest a dual mechanism of white matter vulnerability in Huntington’s disease, in which abnormal transcription of synaptic genes and metabolic disturbance not related to transcription may drive white matter loss.

The authors report the inter-rater reliability and factor structure of the Short Problem Behaviors Assessment (PBA-s), a semistructured interview to measure severity and frequency of behavioral problems in Huntington's disease. Video recordings of 410 PBA-s interviews were rescored by an independent rater, and Cohen's kappa calculated to assess inter-rater reliability. The mean kappa was 0.74 for severity and 0.76 for frequency scores, whereas weighted kappa (allowing scores to differ by 1 point) was 0.94 for severity and 0.92 for frequency scores. The results of factor analysis were consistent with previous studies using other measures. The authors conclude that the PBA-s is a reliable measure.