Dados do Trabalho

Título

Hypothalamic structural alterations in Huntington’s Disease patients

Resumo

Introduction: Huntington’s Disease (HD) is a genetically determined neurodegenerative disorder, with dominant autossomic transmission, provoked by unstable trinucleotide repeat expansion in the huntingtine gene. In addition to the classic features of involuntary movements, cognitive decline and neuropsychiatric disorders, non motor symptons are frequently reported. Hypothalamic involvement might explain these findings. Objective: Assess strutural hypothalamic involvement in Huntignton’s Disease patients. Methods: Magnetic ressonance with volumetric acquisition was performed in 35 HD patients and 35 healthy controls paired by age and sex. The hypothalamus was segmented utilizing a Deep Learning based network. Volume and texture was compared between the two groups. Results: There was no significant difference in hypothalamic volume between HD patients and healthy controls. However, there was significant difference between texture parameters between the two groups (p=0,048). Conclusion: We didn’t detected hypothalamic atrophy in HD patients, however, there is indirect evidence of microstructural alterations that might justify the non motor features observed in Huntington’s Disease patients.