Biological Causes
Named aptly, this is the gene that carries the HD mutation.
What is huntingtin?
You’ve heard about it in health class, but this mood-changing disorder known to numb emotions is a common warning sign of Huntington’s.
What is depression?
Late state Huntington’s patients can no longer care for themselves, at which point their cognitive decline is described by this term.
What is dementia?
Many people with HD will eventually need this person in their life.
What is a caretaker?
AMT-130 is injected into this vital organ, making it a neurosurgical procedure.
What is the brain?
The expansion of these three repeating nucleotides causes HD.
What is C-A-G?
When they lose this ability, Huntington’s patients have outbursts without thinking.
What is impulse control?
Some late-stage Huntington's patients lose touch with reality entirely, experiencing the hallucinations and delusions that define this condition.
What is psychosis?
This effect comes from one of the symptoms of HD; malnutrition.
What is weight loss?
Before maturing in the cytoplasm, the miRNA produced by AMT-130 is shaped like this small hair accessory.
What is a hairpin?
Clumping of extra long huntingtin protein on brain cells causes this.
What is neural degeneration?
Oddly enough, even mild clumsiness can be a sign Huntington’s is degrading this ability to control movements.
What is coordination?
Late-stage Hutington’s produces these fixed, abnormal postures in this disorder.
What is dystonia?
This is how many Americans are living with HD today.
What is more than 30,000?
Once the microRNA binds to the mutant messenger RNA, these enzymes in the cell cleave both of them.
What are silencing complexes?
This is the part of the brain that controls movement, mood, and memory that the huntingtin protein targets.
What is the striatum?
Being unable to control movements, including eating, drinking and even swallowing, leads to this complication.
What is malnutrition?
Late stage Huntington’s patients frequently understand what is being said to them, but can’t respond clearly due to this disorder.
What is dysarthria?
This is the age range in which HD symptoms normally start to manifest in people.
What is in their 30s or 40s?
This small type of functional RNA can silence messenger RNA- including the one that codes for mutant Huntingtin.
What is microRNA?
People with HD have this many repetitions of CAG, while normal people have around 20.
What is 40 or more?
This symptom, including involuntary movements such as shaking and twitching, gets worse as the disease progresses, and is so prominent it was in the original name for Huntington's Disease.
What is chorea?
Huntington’s is rarely listed as the cause of death. Instead this lung infection, resulting from food and drinks entering the airway, most often is.
What is aspiration pneumonia?
Like marfan syndrome and achondroplasia, HD has a 50/50 percent chance of being passed down due to this pattern.
What is autosomal inheritance dominant pattern?
These common vectors used in AMT-130 may be small DNA-based viruses, but they are nonpathogenic.
What are AAV5 viruses?