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HD Lighthouse Editor's Comment: Now it is shown now that HD mice brains are protected from restricted blood flow. I think this is an important finding because HD gene carriers have reduced brain blood flow long before symptoms show up. It seems that the affected brain puts up a good fight. If researchers can solve the problems of reduced blood flow to the brain and how the brain protects itself then we will have more treatments for HD.

For now we can speculate that EPA's blood thinning properties may help the effectiveness of EPA in the treatment of HD. --Jerry

Posted to HDLighthouse: 23 Nov 2002 19:44
HDL Update: Unexpected Huntington's Disease Finding

SPECT scan showing blood flow in the brain
SPECT scan of blood flow.

Ischemia Protection
 
 
"It is not known how the expanded gene restricts blood flow or how HD mice are protected from restricted blood flow."

Huntington's disease transgenic mice are resistant to global cerebral ischemia.

Excitotoxicity plays a key role in ischemic neuronal death and is also one of the candidate mechanisms contributing to neurodegeneration in Huntington's disease (HD).

Unexpectedly we have now found that transgenic mice expressing exon 1 of a mutant human HD gene (R6/1) are protected against global cerebral ischemia (GCI), installed by temporary bilateral occlusion of the carotid arteries.

Whereas wild type mice showed a substantial neuronal damage in the hippocampus following 15, 20 and 60 min of GCI, transgenic mice were partially protected after 15 and 20 minutes of hypoxemia.

This tolerance to ischemia is not blocked by pretreatment of mice with cycloheximide, an unspecific protein synthesis inhibitor.

We conclude that this form of tolerance to ischemia in HD transgenic mice - although somewhat reminiscent of ischemic tolerance after ischemic preconditioning - is therefore independent of short term expression of endogenous neuroprotective proteins.

# # #

Source: Neurosci Lett 2002 Dec 13;334(2):99-102, Scheifer J,et al.
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