Association Between Motor Symptoms and Brain Metabolism in Early Huntington Disease

IMPORTANCE: Brain hypometabolism is associated with the clinical consequences of the degenerative process, but little is known about regional hypermetabolism, sometimes observed in the brain of patients with clinically manifest Huntington disease (HD). Studying the role of regional hypermetabolism is needed to better understand its interaction with the motor symptoms of the disease. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between brain hypometabolism and hypermetabolism with motor scores of patients with early HD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This study started in 2001, and analysis was completed in 2016. Sixty symptomatic patients with HD and 15 healthy age-matched control individuals underwent positron emission tomography to measure cerebral metabolism in this cross-sectional study. They also underwent the Unified Huntington’s Disease Rating Scale motor test, and 2 subscores were extracted: (1) a hyperkinetic score, combining dystonia and chorea, and (2) a hypokinetic score, combining bradykinesia and rigidity. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Statistical parametric mapping software (SPM5) was used to identify all hypo- and hypermetabolic regions in patients with HD relative to control individuals. Correlation analyses (P