Huntington’s disease research news. In plain language. Written by scientists. For the global HD community.
Significant news for the Huntington's disease community this week, as the USA's drug regulator, the FDA, has formally approved Austedo, also known as deutetrabenazine, for prescribing in HD. This modified form of tetrabenazine helps control chorea, the jerky movements often found in HD patients, but is taken twice rather than three times a day.
A recent press release from Teva Pharmaceuticals has the HD community excited, claiming "Pridopidine Demonstrates Slowing of Progression of Huntington Disease in PRIDE-HD Study". What's pridopidine, and what can we really say about HD progression in patients treated with it?
A scientific paper declares positive results for a trial of deutetrabenazine in Huntington's disease, but the headlines report the FDA has rejected the drug. Confusing stuff! The reality is positive overall for this new way of treating uncontrollable movements in HD, but patience will be needed to see where it all ends up.
It’s a great mystery why different people with the same HD mutation sometimes develop symptoms at vastly different ages. Last year a huge genetic analysis gave us some interesting clues, and now, researchers are focusing in on the most promising results. A recent study shows that tiny changes within genes that repair damaged DNA can have a big effect on age of onset in HD and related diseases.
Cognitive deficits, or difficulties thinking clearly, often appear well before the traditional clinical diagnosis of Huntington’s disease (HD). While many contend that the earliest cognitive deficits are caused by damage to the striatum – a structure deep in the brain known to be severely affected in HD – recent evidence suggests that this claim may paint an incomplete picture of the widespread changes occurring in the brains of HD patients during the very early stages of the disease.
Common depictions of HD emphasizing only its movement symptoms paint an incomplete picture of the real disease. HD causes both motor and non-motor symptoms that, together, affect the entire body. Now, scientists are using a broader lens to explore this full set of HD symptoms and determine how symptoms might be related in the disease.
In early December, Raptor Pharmaceuticals released clinical trial results evaluating a drug called cysteamine in Huntington’s disease. News headlines about this trial are heavy on media spin, and so HDBuzz is here to break down what these new results really mean for the Huntington's community.
Just like it is difficult to predict exactly when a storm will hit, predicting when Huntington’s disease symptoms will arise for any particular person is hard to do. However, new research suggests that tiny changes in the on switch of the Huntington’s gene affect symptom onset – and may provide important information in the search for Huntington’s therapies.
Most research on Huntington’s disease is done using animal models that mimic the human disease. However, these models typically recreate only a few of the disease’s symptoms, and there are some important symptoms that don’t show up in any model at all. Now, exciting new research is making great strides against these problems – and teaching us about the disease at the same time.
