Deep brain stimulation in Huntington's disease: assessment of potential targets

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal-dominant neurodegenerative disorder that has very few effective therapeutic interventions. Since the disease has a defined neural circuitry abnormality, neuromodulation could be an option. Case reports, original research, and animal model studies were selected from the databases of Medline and PubMed. All related studies published up to July 2014 were included in this review. The following search terms were used: "Deep brain stimulation," "DBS," "thalamotomy," "pallidal stimulation," and "Huntington's Disease," "HD," "chorea," or "hyperkinetic movement disorders." This review examines potential nodes in the HD circuitry that could be modulated using deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy. With rapid evolution of imaging and ability to reach difficult targets in the brain with refined DBS technology, some phenotypes of HD could potentially be treated with DBS in the near future. Further clinical studies are warranted to validate the efficacy of neuromodulation and to determine the most optimal target for HD.