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Auckland University researchers have matched changes in the brain of Huntington's disease sufferers with their changing moods, advancing the understanding of the devastating neurological disorder.
The study, published by the Oxford University Press in the neuroscience journal Brain, compared the grey matter of 35 Huntington's sufferers with accounts of their behaviour provided by their families.
The brains were taken from the Neurological Foundation human brain bank, a collection of more than 300 healthy and diseased brains donated to science.
Researchers found changes in moods related to changes in a type of neurotransmitter in the brain, and the more the brain was affected by the disease, the more dysfunctional the person's moods became.
It was the first time a study of this sort had been carried out, researcher Richard Faull said.
"The results provide a major new development in our scientific understanding of Huntington's disease and give us greater understanding of the brain and neurological disease," he said.
Huntington's disease, named for the US doctor who described it in 1872, is an inherited disorder characterised by abnormal body movements and loss of memory.
The study was done by Auckland University's department of anatomy and radiology and the department of psychology.
- NZPA
