New brain scan detects Huntington cell loss early
In Huntington’s disease, brain regions degenerate in a fixed sequence. A new scanning method can now visualize that sequence at the cellular level, before cells are actually lost.
Huntington’s is a hereditary brain disease that causes progressive loss of movement control, cognitive decline and behavioral changes. It is caused by a mutation in a single gene, but exactly how that mutation leads to cell loss in specific brain regions is not yet fully understood.
A new view of cellular architecture
Researchers developed a method based on diffusion MRI, a brain scanning technique that tracks the movement of water molecules through tissue. From these measurements, they can infer how cells are arranged and how densely packed they are. According to the study, published in eLife, abnormalities in the cellular architecture of the basal ganglia (a deep brain region involved in movement control) are detectable in Huntington’s patients, even at early disease stages.
A notable finding is that changes in white matter appear detectable earlier than changes in grey matter. White matter contains the long connecting pathways between brain regions. The finding that these pathways are affected before nerve cell bodies themselves is a new insight with potential implications for monitoring disease progression.
A tool for clinical trials
The method is non-invasive and uses an existing scanning technology. That makes it potentially suitable as a monitoring tool in clinical trials for new Huntington’s treatments. Currently no treatment exists that meaningfully slows disease progression.
For aging science more broadly, the approach may be applicable to other neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s as an early indicator of cellular architecture changes, though its sensitivity in those contexts has yet to be tested.
Search terms: diffusion MRI cellular architecture brain, basal ganglia neurodegeneration, Huntington disease biomarker imaging