What causes Huntington’s disease?
Over time, the loss of nerve cells in several brain regions causes the patient with Huntington's disease present greater disability and difficulty to fend for himself. Even when the disease is not fatal, the condition of the patient's weakness produces complications such as pneumonia, heart problems or infections that eventually lead to death.
Huntington's disease is difficult to diagnose. It is sometimes confused with other neurological diseases. Symptoms usually appear after age 30 and before 45. Occasionally, symptoms first appear in childhood. Men and women of all racial groups are affected equally.
Each child of a parent with HD has a 50% chance of inheriting the disease, whether brothers or sisters have inherited. If the child (a) does not inherit the gene from their parents, then they have EH and therefore does not transmit to their offspring. If, however, the person has inherited the gene will develop the disease sooner or later.
This condition is inherited in an autosomal dominant manner and can be found all over the world and in all ethnic groups with a frequency of 5 per 100,000. They have located a gene that causes the disease in the short arm of chromosome 4.
So far there is known to cause this condition. As observed biochemical changes, they suggest a decrease in the relative activity of neurons containing gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and acetylcholine or on relative activity of dopaminergic neurons.