Huntington’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder leading to debilitating cognitive and motor symptoms. It has been proposed that impaired myelination contributes to HD pathogenesis. As well, evidence shows that myelin formation underlies the learning of new motor skills. Here we demonstrate that two months of drumming and rhythm exercises result in an increase in a proxy MRI measure of myelin in patients with early HD relative to healthy controls. This suggests that tailored behavioural stimulation has the potential to result in neural benefits in early HD that could be exploited for future therapeutics aiming to delay disease progression.
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