New brain imaging tests to track Huntingdon s

A range of new clinical, functional, and neuroimaging tests developed by researchers at UCL make it possible to track the progression of Huntington's disease long before noticeable symptoms appear. The new tests provide useful biomarkers that could be used in future trials to detect the effectiveness of potential disease-modifying treatments within a short time period. Published online in The Lancet Neurology , the findings are the first to show quantifiable changes across a broad range of neuroimaging and clinical measures in presymptomatic individuals over just one year. Trials of potential disease-modifying treatments for Huntington's disease are not far off, but sensitive and reliable biomarkers of disease progression need to be established to test potential treatments early in the disease course, when they are most likely to be effective at delaying or preventing disease onset. Current clinical rating scales lack sensitivity and require long observation periods to show definitive change. The TRACK-HD longitudinal observational study was designed to detect very early biomarkers of change by comparing a range of new assessment techniques including advanced brain imaging (3T MRI) and cognitive and quantitative motor tests, with the aim of identifying the best assessments to be used in clinical trials of potential treatments. 366 individuals from Canada, France, the Netherlands, and the UK were enrolled?120 presymptomatic carriers of the expanded Huntington's disease gene (preHD), 123 patients with early HD, and 123 non-expanded Huntington's disease gene carrier controls.