Sandi diffusion MRI reveals living-cell changes in Huntington's disease with potential to track progression and treatment

Summary

Huntington's disease affects movement, thinking and mood, and currently has no cure. A diffusion MRI method called soma and neurite density imaging, or Sandi, analyzes living brain scans to indirectly estimate cellular properties such as cell-body density and size. In a study of 56 people with Huntington's and 57 healthy controls, researchers scanned basal ganglia and the thalamus using a strong-gradient MRI, revealing lower apparent cell-body density, larger apparent cell-body size and more space between cells in the basal ganglia of Huntington's patients, with no similar pattern in the thalamus. These patterns resemble prior postmortem findings where specific striatal neurons are lost and glial cells become larger and more active. The researchers also found relationships between Sandi measures, disease severity and motor tests like finger tapping.

• Huntington's disease patterns in living brains align with postmortem tissue changes and may reflect cellular loss and glial response.
• Sandi measurements correlate with disease severity and motor function, suggesting a cellular reading of disease state beyond simple atrophy.
• Future work could use Sandi to non-invasively monitor treatment effects in clinical trials, but longitudinal validation and routine MRI adaptation are needed.
• The approach may extend to other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Author: The Conversation

Overview