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Delaying the onset of Huntington's in mice

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This unremitting disease develops later in animals stimulated by their environment.

Abstract

Huntington's disease is an inherited (autosomal dominant) disorder in which there is progressive neurodegeneration, affecting the corpus striatum and cerebral cortex of the brain, and for which there is no known cure. Transgenic mice have been created1,2 that develop a neurodegenerative syndrome that closely models the human disease. Here we show that exposure of these mice to a stimulating, enriched environment from an early age helps to prevent the loss of cerebral volume and delays the onset of motor disorders.

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Figure 1: Exposure to a stimulating environment delays the onset of the disease phenotype in R6/1 HD mice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Laboratory of Physiology, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK

    Anton van Dellen, Colin Blakemore & Anthony J. Hannan

  2. Department of Experimental Psychology University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK

    Robert Deacon

  3. Department of Virology, University of Natal Medical School, Durban, South Africa

    Denis York

Authors
  1. Anton van Dellen
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  2. Colin Blakemore
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  3. Robert Deacon
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  4. Denis York
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  5. Anthony J. Hannan
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Correspondence to Anton van Dellen.

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van Dellen, A., Blakemore, C., Deacon, R. et al. Delaying the onset of Huntington's in mice. Nature 404, 721–722 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35008142

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