The Role of Hypothalamic Pathology for Non-Motor Features of Huntington's Disease.

ABSTRACT: Huntington's disease (HD) is a fatal genetic neurodegenerative disorder. It has mainly been considered a movement disorder with cognitive symptoms and these features have been associated with pathology of the striatum and cerebral cortex. Importantly, individuals with the mutant huntingtin gene suffer from a spectrum of non-motor features often decades before the motor disorder manifests. These symptoms and signs include a range of psychiatric symptoms, sleep problems and metabolic changes with weight loss particularly in later stages. A higher body mass index at diagnosis is associated with slower disease progression. The common psychiatric symptom of apathy progresses with the disease. The fact that non-motor features are present early in the disease and that they show an association to

SUBMITTER: Cheong RY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6839491 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature