Compensation Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis Model in Response Inhibition in Premanifest Huntington’s Disease

Abstract

During premanifest stages of Huntington’s disease (pre-HD), individuals typically show increased functional brain activity thought to compensate for widespread brain anomalies. What remains unknown, is to disentangle whether increased functional brain activity reflects compensation or whether it is more of a product of HD-related pathological processes. We used a quantitative model of compensation, known as the CRUNCH (Compensation-Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis) to characterise compensatory function in pre-HD using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). To test CRUNCH predictions, pre-HD individuals (n = 15) and age- and gender-matched controls (n = 15) performed a modified stop-signal task that incremented in four levels of stop difficulty (low, intermediate-1, intermediate-2, and high). Our results did not support the critical assumption of the CRUNCH model – controls did not show increased fMRI activity with increased level of stop difficulty. By contrast, controls showed decreased fMRI activity with increased stop difficulty in right inferior frontal gyrus pars triangularis and right caudate nucleus. Relative to controls, pre-HD individuals showed increased fMRI activity in right inferior frontal gyrus pars triangularis at intermediate-2 and high level of stop difficulty, which is the opposite effect to that predicted by the CRUNCH model. Contrary to the CRUNCH prediction, the pre-HD group showed decreased fMRI activity in right caudate nucleus at low level of stop difficulty, compared with controls. Further to this, fMRI activity patterns in right inferior frontal gyrus pars triangularis and right caudate nucleus were not accompanied by a decline in the number of successful behavioural stops in pre-HD. We therefore suggest that the CRUNCH model does not apply to characterise compensatory processes associated with response inhibition in pre-HD.