White matter cortico-striatal tracts predict apathy subtypes in Huntington's disease

Apathy is the neuropsychiatric syndrome that correlates most highly with Huntington's disease progression, and, like early patterns of neurodegeneration, is associated with lesions to cortico-striatal connections. However, due to its multidimensional nature and elusive etiology, treatment optio...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Paepe, Audrey E. de|||0000-0002-1988-5916, Sierpowska, Joanna, Garcia-Gorro, Clara|||0000-0002-5271-4908, Martínez-Horta, Saul|||0000-0003-0125-7249, Perez-Perez, Jesus, Kulisevsky, Jaime|||0000-0003-4870-1431, Rodriguez Dechicha, Nadia|||0000-0003-4320-6909, Vaquer Ricart, Irene, Subirà Álvarez, Susana|||0000-0002-5509-1435, Calopa, Matilde|||0000-0002-6943-3707, Muñoz, Esteban, Santacruz, Pilar, Ruiz-Idiago, Jesus, Mareca, Celia, Diego Balaguer, Ruth de|||0000-0002-2357-5195, Camara Mancha, Estela|||0000-0002-3879-0496
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:226581
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/226581
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1016/j.nicl.2019.101965
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Apathy
Diffusion MRI
Huntington's disease
Individual differences
Neurodegeneration
White matter microstructure
Descripción
Sumario:Apathy is the neuropsychiatric syndrome that correlates most highly with Huntington's disease progression, and, like early patterns of neurodegeneration, is associated with lesions to cortico-striatal connections. However, due to its multidimensional nature and elusive etiology, treatment options are limited. To disentangle underlying white matter microstructural correlates across the apathy spectrum in Huntington's disease. Forty-six Huntington's disease individuals (premanifest (N = 22) and manifest (N = 24)) and 35 healthy controls were scanned at 3-tesla and underwent apathy evaluation using the short-Problem Behavior Assessment and short-Lille Apathy Rating Scale, with the latter being characterized into three apathy domains, namely emotional, cognitive, and auto-activation deficit. Diffusion tensor imaging was used to study whether individual differences in specific cortico-striatal tracts predicted global apathy and its subdomains. We elucidate that apathy profiles may develop along differential timelines, with the auto-activation deficit domain manifesting prior to motor onset. Furthermore, diffusion tensor imaging revealed that inter-individual variability in the disruption of discrete cortico-striatal tracts might explain the heterogeneous severity of apathy profiles. Specifically, higher levels of auto-activation deficit symptoms significantly correlated with increased mean diffusivity in the right uncinate fasciculus. Conversely, those with severe cognitive apathy demonstrated increased mean diffusivity in the right frontostriatal tract and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to caudate nucleus tract. The current study provides evidence that white matter correlates associated with emotional, cognitive, and auto-activation subtypes may elucidate the heterogeneous nature of apathy in Huntington's disease, as such opening a door for individualized pharmacological management of apathy as a multidimensional syndrome in other neurodegenerative disorders.