Advances in the understanding of early Huntington's disease using the functional imaging techniques of PET and SPET

The functional imaging techniques of positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission tomography (SPET) have been used to study regional brain function in Huntington's disease (HD) in vivo, Reduced striatal gluco se metabolism and dopamine receptor binding are evident in all symptomatic HD patients and in similar to 50% of asymptomatic adult mutation carriers. These characteristics correlate with clinical measures of disease severity, Reduced cortical glucose metabolism and dopamine receptor binding, togethe r with reduced striatal and cortical opioid receptor binding, have also bee n demonstrated in symptomatic patients with HD, Repeat PET measures of stri atal function have been used to monitor the progression of this disease obj ectively, In the future, functional imaging will provide a valuable way of assessing the efficacy of both fetal striatal cell implants and putative ne uroprotective agents, such as nerve growth factors.