Huntington’s Disease And Stem Cell Therapy

Stem Cell Therapies

Stem Cell Therapy

Huntington’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease that causes the gradual and progressive breakdown of neurons in the brain. This disease affects the physical and mental abilities of the affected individual. Patients usually lose the ability to do the things they used to do with ease before. They have reduced the ability to perform simple tasks such as climbing the stairs, taking a shower by themselves, and they might find it difficult to think. The disease starts showing symptoms when the affected individual is between the ages of thirty to forty, however, this disease might start earlier than that. There have been cases where the disease started manifesting before the patient turned twenty. Some of the initial symptoms of this disease are often psychological and mental. Examples of such are sudden deterioration of their mood and mental abilities. The development of irregular gait and poor body coordination might follow this, alongside uncontrollable jerky movement of the body. These symptoms gradually progress, until the patient loses the ability to talk. The later stages of the disease might display symptoms such as dementia. This disease can be inherited from one’s parent, however, a small fraction of all Huntington’s disease cases are caused by a new mutation. The probability that a child would inherit this disease from his/her affected parents is about 50%. The disease can be diagnosed by genetic testing. Although lots of progress have been recorded in the treatment of this disease, there is still no cure for it. However, there are treatments to make the patients live a comfortable life and to reduce the symptoms of the disease

What Are The Signs And Symptoms Of Huntington’s Disease?

Huntington’s disease usually affects the movement, mental state and the mind of patients. It presents with symptoms that cut across a lot of system such as eyes, musculoskeletal and so on. Below are some of the symptoms of this disease;

Movement Disorders

Huntington’s disease impairs the ability of the affected individual to perform voluntary and involuntary movements. They usually do present as

  1. Speech problems: Patients do have difficulty making a speech, or talking fluently. They lose the ability to pronounce words appropriately, even though they could do this without stress before the disease affected them.
  2. Difficulty with deglutition: Deglutition is the ability of an individual to swallow food. However, this ability is drastically reduced in people affected by Huntington’s disease
  3. Visual problems: Huntington’s disease causes a reduction in the eye movements. Apart from slowing down the eye movements, it can also lead to abnormal eye movements.
  4. Huntington’s disease leads to abnormal dancing movements of the limbs, also referred to as chorea. In addition, patients may experience involuntary jerky movements

The symptoms of Huntington’s disease listed above shows how the disease can impair the movement of patients. This has a significant effect on their ability to carry out their day to day task. This disease progresses, and most patients would not be able to take care of themselves at the later stage. They would have to rely on caregivers to survive.

Cognitive Disorders

The cognitive disorders that come with Huntington’s disease are;

  1. Inability of the patients to focus, direct and successfully execute their tasks.
  2. They usually get stuck on a thought, mood or action for a long time. This can be attributed to the mental rigidity that comes with the disease.
  3. Patients with this disease might find it difficult controlling themselves. For example, they might talk recklessly, and also act weirdly. Often times, these patients might become sexually promiscuous.
  4. Patients might also become unaware of their own actions and behaviors.
  5. They also can forget what they’re usually capable of doing.
  6. They usually do have a reduction in their ability to find the right words to say. Also, they sometimes do have a decreased speed of processing their thoughts.
  7. Reduced plasticity: Patients affected by this disease finds it difficult to learn new things. They’d rather stick to what they already know. They usually don’t like changing their ways of doing things.

Psychiatric Disorders

One of the most common presenting psychiatric disorder symptom to some part of the brain, and impaired functions of the brain. The signs and symptoms of this disease may include;

  1. Patients usually have suicidal thoughts. They do have regular thoughts on death and dying.
  2. Lack of sleep: This might be attributed to their unstable, loud and disturbed minds. It keeps them awake.
  3. Isolation: Just like most depressed people, they prefer to be by themselves. They like to separate themselves from people. They do also withdraw from any social activities.
  4. Most patients that are affected by depression do have a sense of emptiness and hopelessness. They constantly feel sad, no matter how people try to improve the situation. Most times, they can’t really figure out why they are sad.
  5. Mania: Patients affected by mania do have an improved mood, are usually oversensitive and do present with a huge ego and bloated self-esteem.

How Is Huntington’s Disease Currently Treated?

Huntington’s disease has no cure yet, however, there are some treatments that can be given to improving the symptoms of patients. Some of these are;

  1. Medication: Drugs are administered to help improve the movements of the patient.
  2. Physiotherapy: This is done to assist the patient with learning how to control their movements. Some devices can also be employed in doing this.
  3. Exercise: Exercises have been proven to be helpful in the treatment of this disease. Huntington’s disease patient who engages in physical activities has shown more improvements when compared to others.

Stem Cell Therapy And Huntington’s Disease

The use of mesenchymal stem cells for the treatment of Huntington’s disease have shown to have a lot of potentials. Mesenchymal stem cells have some unique abilities. They can be extracted from many tissues of the body without having to undergo pain or anesthesia. They are capable of regeneration, tissue repair, and also regulate the immune system. The most important part of this is that they do not elicit an immune response when transplanted. This makes them crucial for the treatment of disease. Mesenchymal stem cells have the ability to locate damaged tissues of the body and migrate there. Trials have been done on animals with Huntington’s disease, and a lot of successes have been recorded, however, there are some ethical barriers that must be lifted before this can be replicated in humans.

References

Dumevska, B., McKernan, R., Hu, J. and Schmidt, U. (2016). Derivation of Huntington Disease affected Genea089 human embryonic stem cell line. Stem Cell Research, 16(2), pp.434-436.

Feigin, A. (2013). Redefining the genetic risk for Huntington disease. Neurology, 80(22), pp.2004-2005.

Millichap, J. (2012). Brain Growth in Children at Risk for Huntington Disease. Pediatric Neurology Briefs, 26(10), p.80.

The possible cellular mechanism for striatal degeneration in Huntington disease. (2014). Nature Reviews Neurology, 10(4), pp.182-182.