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Li J, Wang Y, Yang R, Ma W, Yan J, Li Y, Chen G, Pan J. Pain in Huntington's disease and its potential mechanisms. Front Aging Neurosci 2023; 15:1190563. [PMID: 37484692 PMCID: PMC10357841 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2023.1190563] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2023] [Accepted: 06/19/2023] [Indexed: 07/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Pain is common and frequent in many neurodegenerative diseases, although it has not received much attention. In Huntington's disease (HD), pain is often ignored and under-researched because attention is more focused on motor and cognitive decline than psychiatric symptoms. In HD progression, pain symptoms are complex and involved in multiple etiologies, particularly mental issues such as apathy, anxiety and irritability. Because of psychiatric issues, HD patients rarely complain of pain, although their bodies show severe pain symptoms, ultimately resulting in insufficient awareness and lack of research. In HD, few studies have focused on pain and pain-related features. A detailed and systemic pain history is crucial to assess and explore pain pathophysiology in HD. This review provides an overview concentrating on pain-related factors in HD, including neuropathology, frequency, features, affecting factors and mechanisms. More attention and studies are still needed in this interesting field in the future.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiajie Li
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Medical School of Nantong University, Nantong, China
| | - Yan Wang
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Medical School of Nantong University, Nantong, China
| | - Riyun Yang
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Medical School of Nantong University, Nantong, China
| | - Wenjun Ma
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Medical School of Nantong University, Nantong, China
| | - JunGuo Yan
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Medical School of Nantong University, Nantong, China
| | - Yi Li
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Medical School of Nantong University, Nantong, China
| | - Gang Chen
- Center for Basic Medical Research, Medical School of Nantong University, Co-innovation Center of Neuroregeneration, Nantong, Jiangsu, China
- Department of Anesthesiology, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu, China
| | - Jingying Pan
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Medical School of Nantong University, Nantong, China
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Kurat S, Heinrich P, Molnar-Kasza A, Loeffler T, Flunkert S, Hutter-Paier B. Homozygosity of BACHD rats not only causes strong behavioral deficits in young female rats but also a reduced breeding success. Brain Res 2021; 1761:147396. [PMID: 33662341 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2021.147396] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2020] [Revised: 01/29/2021] [Accepted: 02/20/2021] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
Huntington's disease is known to be a purely genetic disease based on an expansion of a CAG base triplet repeat in the coding region of the Huntingtin gene. Some years ago, researchers were able to introduce the extensive full-length gene sequence of the mutant huntingtin gene into a rodent model. The resulting BACHD rat is already well characterized for behavioral deficits. So far, all analyses in this preclinical rat model were performed in male hemizygous animals. As homozygosity of transgenic models often causes an amplification of the phenotype and female HD patients present a stronger phenotype compared to men, we established a homozygous breeding colony and tested 2 and 5 months old homozygous male and female BACHD rats in a behavioral test battery. The tests included the grip strength test, Rota Rod, elevated plus maze, passive avoidance, and Barnes maze test. Our results show strong deficits in young female homozygous BACHD rats including increased body weight, motor deficits, muscle weakness, reduced anxiety and hypoactivity, as well as learning and memory deficits. Analysis of male homozygous BACHD rats showed only weak disease symptoms, similar compared to male hemizygous BACHD rats of already published studies. Evaluation of the breeding success showed that homozygous BACHD have a reduced number of pups at the time of birth that even decreases until weaning. Our results suggest that the phenotype of homozygous male BACHD rats barely differs from already published results of hemizygous BACHD rats while female homozygous BACHD rats display strong and early alterations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stephan Kurat
- QPS Austria GmbH, Neuropharmacology, Parkring 12, 8074 Grambach, Austria.
| | - Petra Heinrich
- QPS Austria GmbH, Neuropharmacology, Parkring 12, 8074 Grambach, Austria.
| | - Agnes Molnar-Kasza
- QPS Austria GmbH, Neuropharmacology, Parkring 12, 8074 Grambach, Austria.
| | - Tina Loeffler
- QPS Austria GmbH, Neuropharmacology, Parkring 12, 8074 Grambach, Austria.
| | - Stefanie Flunkert
- QPS Austria GmbH, Neuropharmacology, Parkring 12, 8074 Grambach, Austria.
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Lamirault C, Nguyen HP, Doyère V, El Massioui N. Age-related alteration of emotional regulation in the BACHD rat model of Huntington disease. GENES, BRAIN, AND BEHAVIOR 2020; 19:e12633. [PMID: 31883197 DOI: 10.1111/gbb.12633] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2019] [Revised: 10/29/2019] [Accepted: 12/23/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Huntington's disease (HD) is a genetic neurodegenerative disorder, caused by an expanded CAG repeat in the gene encoding the huntingtin protein. At the premanifest phase, before motor symptoms occur, psychiatric and emotional disorders are observed with high prevalence in HD patients. Agitation, anxiety and irritability are often described but also depression and/or apathy, associated with a lack of emotional control. The aim of the present study was to better circumscribe and understand the emotional symptoms and assess their evolution according to the progression of the disease using a transgenic HD model, BACHD rats, at the age of 4, 12 and 18 months. To achieve this goal, we confronted animals to two types of tests: first, tests assessing anxiety like the light/dark box and the conflict test, which are situations that did not involve an obvious threat and tests assessing the reactivity to a present threat using confrontation with an unknown conspecific (social behavior test) or with an aversive stimulus (fear conditioning test). In all animals, results show an age-dependent anxiety-like behavior, particularly marked in situation requiring passive responses (light/dark box and fear conditioning tests). BACHD rats exhibited a more profound alteration than WT animals in these tests from an early stage of the disease whereas, in tasks requiring some kind of motivation (for food or for social contacts), only old BACHD rats showed high anxiety-like behavior compared to WT, may be partly due to the other symptoms' occurrence at this stage: locomotor difficulties and/or apathy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Charlotte Lamirault
- Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Huu Phuc Nguyen
- Department of Human Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Valérie Doyère
- Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Nicole El Massioui
- Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
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Garces D, El Massioui N, Lamirault C, Riess O, Nguyen HP, Brown BL, Doyère V. The Alteration of Emotion Regulation Precedes the Deficits in Interval Timing in the BACHD Rat Model for Huntington Disease. Front Integr Neurosci 2018; 12:14. [PMID: 29867384 PMCID: PMC5954136 DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2018.00014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2018] [Accepted: 04/05/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Huntington disease (HD) is an autosomal dominantly inherited, progressive neurodegenerative disorder which is accompanied by executive dysfunctions and emotional alteration. The aim of the present study was to assess the impact of emotion/stress on on-going highly demanding cognitive tasks, i.e., temporal processing, as a function of age in BACHD rats (a “full length” model of HD). Middle-aged (4–6 months) and old (10–12 months) rats were first trained on a 2 vs. 8-s temporal discrimination task, and then exposed to a series of bisection tests under normal and stressful (10 mild unpredictable foot-shocks) conditions. The animals were then trained on a peak interval task, in which reinforced fixed-interval (FI) 30-s trials were randomly intermixed with non-reinforced probe trials. After training, the effect of stress upon time perception was again assessed. Sensitivity to foot-shocks was also assessed independently. The results show effects of both age and genotype, with largely greater effects in old BACHD animals. The older BACHD animals had impaired learning in both tasks, but reached equivalent levels of performance as WT animals at the end of training in the temporal discrimination task, while remaining impaired in the peak interval task. Whereas sensitivity to foot-shock did not differ between BACHD and WT rats, delivery of foot-shocks during the test sessions had a disruptive impact on temporal behavior in WT animals, an effect which increased with age. In contrast, BACHD rats, independent of age, did not show any significant disruption under stress. In conclusion, BACHD rats showed a disruption in temporal learning in late symptomatic animals. Age-related modification in stress-induced impairment of temporal control of behavior was also observed, an effect which was greatly reduced in BACHD animals, thus confirming previous results suggesting reduced emotional reactivity in HD animals. The results suggest a staggered onset in cognitive and emotional alterations in HD, with emotional alteration being the earliest, possibly related to different time courses of degeneration in cortico-striatal and amygdala circuits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Garces
- The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, United States
| | - Nicole El Massioui
- Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay (Neuro-PSI), Université Paris Sud, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France
| | - Charlotte Lamirault
- Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay (Neuro-PSI), Université Paris Sud, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France
| | - Olaf Riess
- Institute of Medical Genetics and Applied Genomics, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.,Center for Rare Diseases, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Huu P Nguyen
- Institute of Medical Genetics and Applied Genomics, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.,Center for Rare Diseases, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.,Department of Human Genetics, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Bruce L Brown
- The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, United States.,Queens College, City University of New York, New York, NY, United States
| | - Valérie Doyère
- Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay (Neuro-PSI), Université Paris Sud, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France
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Genetic Rodent Models of Huntington Disease. ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY 2018; 1049:29-57. [DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-71779-1_2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/12/2023]
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Manfré G, Novati A, Faccini I, Rossetti AC, Bosch K, Molteni R, Riva MA, Van der Harst JE, Nguyen HP, Homberg JR. BACHD rats expressing full-length mutant huntingtin exhibit differences in social behavior compared to wild-type littermates. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0192289. [PMID: 29415038 PMCID: PMC5802907 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192289] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2017] [Accepted: 01/22/2018] [Indexed: 01/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Background Huntington disease (HD) is a devastating inherited neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive motor, cognitive, and psychiatric symptoms without any cure to slow down or stop the progress of the disease. The BACHD rat model for HD carrying the human full-length mutant huntingtin protein (mHTT) with 97 polyQ repeats has been recently established as a promising model which reproduces several HD-like features. While motor and cognitive functions have been characterized in BACHD rats, little is known about their social phenotype. Objective This study focuses especially on social behavior since evidence for social disturbances exists in human patients. Our objective was to compare social behavior in BACHD and wild-type (WT) rats at different ages, using two different measures of sociability. Methods Animals were tested longitudinally at the age of 2, 4 and 8 months in the social interaction test to examine different parameters of sociability. A separate cohort of 7 month old rats was tested in the three chamber social test to measure both sociability and social novelty. Gene expression analyses in 8 months old animals were performed by real time qRT-PCR to evaluate a potential involvement of D1 and D2 dopaminergic receptors and the contribution of Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) to the observed behavioral alterations. Results In the social interaction test, BACHD rats showed age-dependent changes in behaviour when they were-re introduced to their cagemate after a 24 hours-period of individual housing. The time spent on nape attacks increased with aging. Furthermore, a significant higher level of pinning at 2 months of age was shown in the BACHD rats compared to wild-types, followed by a reduction at 4 and 8 months. On the other hand, BACHD rats exhibited a decreased active social behaviour compared to wild-types, reflected by genotype-effects on approaching, following and social nose contact. In the three chamber social test, BACHD rats seemed to show a mild deficit in preference for social novelty, but no changes in social interest. Molecular analyses revealed that BACHD animals exposed to the social interaction test displayed decreased mRNA levels of the total form of BDNF in ventral striatum and unaltered striatal expression of D1 and D2 dopamine receptors. Conclusions Taken together, these results indicate deficits in several parameters representative of sociability. Altered BDNF expression in the ventral striatum may contribute to the deficits in sociability in 8 months old BACHD rats. These data support the validity of the BACHD rat model in mimicking features of certain social deficits that could be relevant to symptoms in patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giuseppe Manfré
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Noldus Information Technology BV, Wageningen, The Netherlands
- Institute of Medical Genetics and Applied Genomics, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Arianna Novati
- Institute of Medical Genetics and Applied Genomics, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
- Centre of Rare Diseases, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Ilaria Faccini
- Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Andrea C. Rossetti
- Department of Medical Biotechnology and Translational Medicine, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Kari Bosch
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Raffaella Molteni
- Department of Medical Biotechnology and Translational Medicine, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Marco A. Riva
- Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Johanneke E. Van der Harst
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Noldus Information Technology BV, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Huu Phuc Nguyen
- Institute of Medical Genetics and Applied Genomics, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
- Centre of Rare Diseases, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
- * E-mail:
| | - Judith R. Homberg
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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