Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Assessing Burrowing, Nest Construction, and Hoarding in Mice
Published on: January 5, 2012
Cognitive impairment related to apathy in early Huntington's disease
Sophie Baudic1, Patrick Maison, Guillaume Dolbeau
1INSERM/UPVM U421, Créteil, France. baudic@im3.inserm.fr
Objective:
To investigate the relationships between cognitive impairment and apathy in patients with early Huntington's disease (HD) and to further explore the influence of depression on the outcome of cognitive changes associated with apathy.
Methods:
We included 36 early HD patients, among them 20 were apathetic (HDA) and 16 were not (HDnA). The two groups were matched by age, education and severity of disease. Cognitive functions were evaluated by a comprehensive neuropsychological battery that measures memory, attention, executive function, language and visuospatial abilities.
Results:
The HDA patients had significantly lower scores on memory, attention and executive function tests when compared with the HDnA patients (p values <0.05). We compared the performance of patients with (50%) and without depression on cognitive tasks and showed that depression per se did not influence performance. Finally, the results demonstrate that interactions between apathy and motor disturbance have a significant effect on cognitive impairment in HD.
Discussion:
The presence of apathy is associated with more severe deficits of attention, executive function and episodic memory in early HD patients. Furthermore, the findings suggest that depression has little or no effect on cognitive deficits. Finally, apathy increased in parallel with both motor and cognitive dysfunction.
More Related Videos
07:26Characterizing the Relationship Between Eye Movement Parameters and Cognitive Functions in Non-demented Parkinson's Disease Patients with Eye Tracking
Published on: September 26, 2019
05:39A Fine Motor Task to Study Joint Kinematics in a Preclinical Model of Neurodegenerative Disease
Published on: June 13, 2025
Related Concept Videos
Parkinson's Disease: Treatment
Parkinson's Disease is primarily a result of the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta. The cornerstone of its...
Alzheimer's Disease: Overview
The clinical diagnosis of AD hinges on the presence of memory and other cognitive impairments. Biomarkers, such as changes in Aβ and tau...
Alzheimer Disease l: Introduction
Alzheimer Disease ll: Pathophysiology
Huntington Disease l: Introduction
Dementia l: Introduction