Striatal gray matter loss in Huntington's disease is leftward biased

Mov Disord. 2007 Jun 15;22(8):1169-73. doi: 10.1002/mds.21137.

Abstract

In Huntington's disease (HD), the distribution of pathological changes throughout the brain is incompletely understood. Some studies have identified leftward-biased lateralization, whereas others did not. We performed magnetic resonance imaging and a voxel-based asymmetry analysis in 44 right-handed HD gene carriers (presymptomatic, n = 5; stage I, n = 28; stage II, n = 11) and 44 right-handed healthy controls. The group comparison revealed leftward-biased gray matter loss in the striatum. Further analyses showed no indication of asymmetry in presymptomatic HD patients but an increase in asymmetry in the course of the HD stages under examination. Our study demonstrates and discusses leftward-biased gray matter loss in HD.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Brain / pathology*
  • Cognition Disorders / diagnosis
  • Cognition Disorders / epidemiology
  • Corpus Striatum / pathology*
  • Female
  • Functional Laterality / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Huntington Disease / diagnosis
  • Huntington Disease / epidemiology
  • Huntington Disease / pathology*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Nerve Degeneration / epidemiology
  • Nerve Degeneration / pathology
  • Neuropsychological Tests
  • Severity of Illness Index