Huntingtin suppression could restore cognitive and psychiatric impairments in mice

A new study from the University of British Columbia (Canada) has revealed that reducing mutated Huntington disease (HD) protein in the brain could restore cognitive and psychiatric impairments in mice. Approximately one in 7000 people in Canada has HD and every child of a person with the disease has a 50% chance of inheriting the gene that causes the illness. In this study, which has been published in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers demonstrate that intracerebral injection of antisense oligonucleotides specifically inhibiting the expression of mutant HTT improved cognition and reduced anxiety and depressive behaviors in symptomatic HD mice. In...