Huntington's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Huntington's Disease, including details on genetics, causes, symptoms, treatment.

Early Huntington's disease affects movements in transformed sensorimotor mappings.

Boulet C, Lemay M, Bédard MA, Chouinard MJ, Chouinard S, Richer F

Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, Université du Québec à Montréal, P.O. Box 8888, Montreal, QC, Canada H3C 3P8.

This study examined the effect of transformed visual feedback on movement control in Huntington's disease (HD). Patients in the early stages of HD and controls performed aiming movements towards peripheral targets on a digitizing tablet and emphasizing precision. In a baseline condition, HD patients were slower but showed few precision problems in aiming. When visual feedback was inverted in both vertical and horizontal axes, patients showed problems in initial and terminal phases of movement where feedback is most critical. When visual feedback was inverted along a single axis as in a mirror-inversion, HD patients showed large deviations and over-corrections before adaptation. Adaptation was similar in both groups. These results suggest that HD impairs on-line error correction in novel movements.

Published 22 March 2005 in Brain Cogn, 57(3): 236-43.
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