Huntington's disease (HD) is a devastating, progressive neurodegenerative disease with a distinct phenotype characterized by chorea and dystonia, incoordination, cognitive decline and behavioral difficulties. The precise mechanisms of HD progression are poorly understood; however, it is known that there is an expansion of the trinucleotide cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) repeat in the Huntingtin gene. Herein DI/LC-MS/MS was used to accurately identify and quantify 185 metabolites in post mortem frontal lobe and striatum from HD patients and healthy control cases. The findings link changes in energy metabolism and phospholipid metabolism to HD pathology and also demonstrate significant reductions in neurotransmitters. Further investigation into the oxidation of fatty acids and phospholipid metabolism in pre-clinical models of HD are clearly warranted for the identification of potential therapies. Additionally, panels of 5 metabolite biomarkers were identified in both the frontal lobe (AUC = 0.962 (95% CI: 0.85-1.00) and striatum (AUC = 0.988 (95% CI: 0.899-1.00). This could have clinical utility in more accessible biomatrices such as blood serum for the early detection of those entering the prodromal phase of the disease, when treatment is believed to be most effective. Further evaluation of these biomarker panels in human cohorts is justified to determine their clinical efficacy.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbadis.2018.04.012 | DOI Listing |
J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci
January 2025
Departments of Neurology (Watson, Pfalzer, Snow, Diehl, McDonell, Claassen) and Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology (Vnencak-Jones), Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville; Department of Psychology and Human Development (Ciriegio, Snow, Compas), Vanderbilt University, Nashville; Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa, Iowa City (Long).
Objective: Using a multi-informant approach, the authors assessed the psychiatric symptoms of adolescents and young adults with or without the huntingtin gene expansion and examined the association of psychiatric symptoms with cumulative disease exposure, a measure taking into account age and genetic data.
Methods: The sample included 110 participants with (N=71) or without (N=39) the gene expansion, along with 85 family members who provided collateral reports. Saliva samples were used for genetic testing.
Neural Regen Res
January 2025
Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.
Chemical exchange saturation transfer magnetic resonance imaging is an advanced imaging technique that enables the detection of compounds at low concentrations with high sensitivity and spatial resolution and has been extensively studied for diagnosing malignancy and stroke. In recent years, the emerging exploration of chemical exchange saturation transfer magnetic resonance imaging for detecting pathological changes in neurodegenerative diseases has opened up new possibilities for early detection and repetitive scans without ionizing radiation. This review serves as an overview of chemical exchange saturation transfer magnetic resonance imaging with detailed information on contrast mechanisms and processing methods and summarizes recent developments in both clinical and preclinical studies of chemical exchange saturation transfer magnetic resonance imaging for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and Huntington's disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurobiol Dis
January 2025
Department of Neurology and Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA; Southern Research, Birmingham, AL 35205, USA. Electronic address:
Mitochondrial dysfunction, transcriptional dysregulation, and protein aggregation are hallmarks of multiple neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington's disease (HD). Strategies are needed to counteract these processes to restore neuronal health and function in HD. Recent evidence indicates that the transcription factor estrogen-related receptor gamma (ERRγ/Esrrg) is required for normal expression of mitochondrial, synaptic, and autophagy genes in neurons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Affect Disord
January 2025
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Background: Shorter weeknight sleep duration has not been assessed as a mediating mechanism linking earlier pubertal timing to a greater burden of adolescent depression symptoms.
Methods: Among 1138 participants (48.6 % female) from Project Viva, a pre-birth longitudinal cohort, we examined relationships among pubertal timing measures, actigraphy-captured and self-reported weeknight sleep duration across mid-adolescence, and depression symptoms in late adolescence.
Psychiatr Psychol Law
January 2024
School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
This study aims to characterize people with dementia who were charged with criminal offences between 1995 and 2020 and describe their offending. Court cases were derived from Australian legal databases and descriptive data were manually extracted from case reports. Of 62 people variously charged with homicide, assault, child sexual assault, breach of conditions, property and larceny offences, driving offences, perverting the course of justice and arson, 46 were identified as having executive dysfunction, either as stated by medical expert witnesses or implicitly, due to conditions like Huntington's disease and frontotemporal dementia.
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