Cortical inhibitory deficits in premanifest and early Huntington's disease.

摘要: Although progress has been made towards understanding the gross cortical and subcortical pathology of Huntington's disease (HD), there remains little progressive pathophysiological changes that occur in brain circuits underlying disease. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) enables investigation functional integrity cortico-subcortical pathways, yet it not widely applied HD research to date. This study sought characterise profiles excitability, including inhibition facilitation, groups premanifest symptomatic participants via use TMS. We also investigated clinical, neurocognitive psychiatric correlates excitability better understand development phenotypic heterogeneity. The sample comprised 16 HD, 12 early 17 healthy control participants. Single- paired-pulse TMS protocols were administered left primary motor cortex, with surface electromyography recorded from abductor pollicis brevis muscle. Short-interval was significantly reduced compared controls, correlated pathological burden performance. There long-interval both which associated disturbances. Motor thresholds, silent periods intracortical facilitation did differ across groups. Our results provide important new insights into stages HD. propose neurophysiological measures obtained have potential utility as endophenotypic biomarkers given their association clinical phenotype.