Apathy and information processing in Huntington’s disease
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Apathy and motivationally-relevant information processing in Huntington’s disease: an investigation using eye-tracking and behavioural measures
IRAS ID
125012
Contact name
Judith Bek
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Manchester
Research summary
People with Huntington’s disease (HD) often suffer from apathy, which involves reduced motivation, initiation, energy and activity levels. Apathy has negative consequences for both patient and family. As well as impacting on treatment and everyday functioning, social interactions and relationships are also likely to suffer.
Apathy has been associated with cognitive (thinking) changes in HD as well as in other conditions. Investigating the relationship between apathy and cognition in HD would help us to understand how symptoms are related in HD and to develop more effective techniques for measuring symptoms.
In previous research, apathy has been associated with abnormal eye movements while processing information. Healthy adults normally show increased processing of emotional information, which has been suggested to reflect motivational relevance (e.g., signalling potential threat or reward). Individuals with Parkinson’s disease have shown reduced processing of emotional images, and apathy is a common problem in this condition. These findings suggest that apathy may affect processing of motivationally-relevant information.
HD patients are known to show abnormal eye movements, such as slower responses or failing to track a target. We propose that individuals with HD may also show altered eye movements during processing of motivationally-relevant (e.g., emotional) information. Studying eye movements may thus increase our understanding of the relationship between apathy and information-processing in HD.
The planned study will investigate the relationship between apathy and motivationally-relevant information processing in HD. We plan to test HD gene carriers and patients on processing of emotional and social information. Eye movements and behavioural responses (e.g., accuracy) will be compared with a group of healthy volunteers (non-carriers of the HD gene). Apathy will also be measured. HD patients and gene carriers are expected to show different eye movements and/or behavioural responses relative to healthy controls, and that these measures will be related to levels of apathy
REC name
North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/NW/0324
Date of REC Opinion
20 May 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion