Structural brain correlates of dementia in Huntington's disease
Martínez Horta, Saul (Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica Sant Pau)
Sampedro, Frederic (Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica Sant Pau)
Horta, Andrea (Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica Sant Pau)
Pérez-Pérez, Jesús (Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica Sant Pau)
Pagonabarraga Mora, Javier (Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica Sant Pau)
Gómez-Ansón, Beatriz (Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica Sant Pau)
Kulisevsky, Jaime (Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica Sant Pau)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Date:	2020
Abstract:	Huntington's disease (HD) is a fatal genetic neurodegenerative disorder with no effective treatment currently available. Progressive basal ganglia and whole-brain atrophy and concurrent cognitive deterioration are prototypical aspects of HD. However, the specific patterns of brain atrophy underlying cognitive impairment of different severity in HD are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the specific structural brain correlates of major cognitive deficits in HD and to explore its association with neuropsychological indicators. Thirty-five symptomatic early-to-mild HD patients and 15 healthy controls (HC) with available T1-MRI imaging were included in this study. In this cross-sectional study, HD patients were classified as patients with (HD-Dem) and without (HD-ND) major cognitive impairment in the range of dementia. This classification was based on previously validated PD-CRS cutoff scores for HD. Differences in brain atrophy across groups were studied by means of grey-matter volume voxel-based morphometry (GMV-VBM) and cortical thickness (Cth). Voxelwise and vertexwise general linear models were used to assess the group comparisons, controlling for the effects of age, sex, education, CAG repeat length and severity of motor symptoms. Clusters surviving p < 0. 05 and family-wise error (FWE) correction were considered statistically significant. In order to characterize the impact on cognitive performance of the observed brain differences across groups, GMV and Cth values in the set of significant regions were computed and correlated with specific neuropsychological tests. All groups had similar sociodemographic profiles, and the HD groups did not significantly differ in terms of CAG repeat length. Compared to HC, both HD groups exhibited significant atrophy in multiple subcortical and parietal brain regions. However, compared to HC and HD-ND groups, HD-Dem patients showed a more prominent pattern of reduced GMV and cortical thinning. Importantly, this thinning was restricted to regions of the parietal-temporal and occipital cortices. Furthermore, these brain alterations were further associated with poorer cognitive performance in tasks assessing frontal-executive and attention domains as well as memory, language and constructional abilities. Major cognitive impairment in the range of dementia in HD is associated with brain and cognitive alterations exceeding the prototypical frontal-executive deficits commonly recognized in HD. The observed posterior-cortical damage identified by MRI and its association with memory, language, and visuoconstructive dysfunction suggest a strong involvement of extra-striatal atrophy in the onset of severe cognitive dysfunction in HD patients. Critically, major cognitive impairment in this sample was not associated with CAG repeat length, age or education. This finding could support a possible involvement of additional neuropathological mechanisms aggravating cognitive deterioration in HD.
Grants:	Instituto de Salud Carlos III PI17-001885
Note:	Altres ajuts: The present study was partially funded by the "Human Biology Project Grant" of the Huntington's Disease Society of America (USA).
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Huntington's disease ; Dementia ; Neuropsychology ; Mild cognitive impairment ; Movement disorders
Published in:	NeuroImage. Clinical, Vol. 28 (september 2020) , ISSN 2213-1582

DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102415
PMID: 32979842

9 p, 2.5 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Health sciences and biosciences > Institut de Recerca Sant Pau
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles