Temporal Perception and UHDRS Correlation in Huntington Disease

AGOSTINO P.V.; GATTO, E.M.; CESARINI M; SANGUINETTI A; GOLOMBEK D.A.

Vancouver

Congreso; 68th American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting; 2016

American Academy of Neurology

Background: Time estimation in the seconds-to-minutes range-known as interval timing- involves the interaction ofthe basal ganglia and the prefrontal cortex. An impaired ability in interval timing is found in patients with disordersthat involve dopaminergic pathways, such as Parkinson?s disease and Multiple System Atrophy. In Huntington?sdisease (HD) , cortico-striatal circuits are a岽Ꚁected, mainly via degeneration of medium spiny neurons. Thus,changes in timing processes are expected in HD.Objetives:To assess temporal perception in patients with HD and its correlation with motor HDPatients and metods: Temporal processing was evaluated in patients with molecular diagnosis of HD and controlsmatched by age, sex and educational level (n=15/group). Interval timing: The time production task was a variant ofthe human peak-interval task and was performed as previously published. Production of 3, 6 and 12s targetintervals occurred in separate blocks. Reaction time: The reaction time task was adapted and validated fromThorne et al. Participants were asked to respond as quickly as possible to black circles appearing on a whitescreen. MATLAB program was used for data analysis and ANOVA test was administered when appropriated.Results and Conclusions: 15 patients with molecular diagnosis of HD able to accomplish the test and 15 controlsmatched by age, sex and educational level composed the sample. Mean age was 46.47 ± 13.75 years for patientsand 41.13 ± 14.97 years for controls (p=0,32, t-test). Mean expanded allele was 43 and mean disease duration 7.57years (range 1-12 years). Signiဌcant di岽Ꚁerences in the time production and time reaction tasks were found, withworse performance in HD compared to controls. (p