Stem cell hopes for brain disease

Huntington's disease is caused by a single cell mutation. Photo / Greg Bowker

Breakthrough research could mean good news for future sufferers of Huntington's disease.

Associated with involuntary "dance-like" or jerky movements and gradual loss of intellectual abilities, the genetic disorder can leave some unable to recognise family and friends.

However, an Auckland University study has shown the brain is not as badly hit by the disease as first thought - and that could be the key to a cure.

Previous studies, using rodents, showed a reduction in cell renewal in the two regions that make new brain cells.

One of those is next to the area where cells die when affected by Huntington's disease and the second controls learning and memory.

Auckland researchers instead tested the brains of people who had died from the disease. Unlike with the rodents, they found there was no change in one region and a "significant" increase in the production of new brain cells in the other, said senior anatomy lecturer Maurice Curtis.

"It gives hope for people with Huntington's disease. The fact that repair goes on at all spells hope for future therapies aimed at harnessing the brain's own stem cells," she said.

The study was part of an eight-year project on how the brain tries to repair itself over the course of the disease.

Huntington's was caused by a single cell mutation, said Curtis. "That's a tragedy of the disease - it is thrust upon them by their genes."

Huntington's Disease Association spokeswoman Jo Dysart said the findings gave families hope for the future: "Finding cause and a potential cure are critical."

The study is due to be published in the Journal of Neuroscience this month.