Brain Compensation in Premanifest Huntington's Disease

During premanifest stages of Huntington’s disease (pre-HD), individuals typically increase functional brain activity to compensate for widespread brain anomalies. It is somewhat problematic to unfold whether increased functional brain activity reflects a genuine compensatory response in pre-HD, or is a result of HD-related pathology. We used a quantitative model of brain compensation, known as the CRUNCH (Compensation-Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis) to characterise compensatory processes in proactive and reactive control in pre-HD. For this purpose, we acquired structural and functional MRI (fMRI) data (n=15 pre-HD; n=15 controls) during visuospatial working and stop-signal paradigms.