Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Journal of Medical Genetics logoLink to Journal of Medical Genetics
. 1996 Feb;33(2):128–131. doi: 10.1136/jmg.33.2.128

Familial psychiatric presentation of Huntington's disease.

S Lovestone 1, S Hodgson 1, P Sham 1, A M Differ 1, R Levy 1
PMCID: PMC1051838  PMID: 8929949

Abstract

Symptoms of schizophrenia may be encountered in Huntington's disease (HD) but usually when the full clinical syndrome is apparent; prechoreic psychosis is relatively uncommon. We describe a family where all four members affected with HD presented first with a severe psychiatric syndrome, which in three cases was schizophreniform in nature. Two other living members with no current signs of motor disorder have received psychiatric treatment, one for schizophrenia. Concurrence of psychosis and Huntington's disease in this family is unlikely to have occurred by chance, suggesting that there is some feature in this family which gives rise to the psychotic presentation. Families such as this may contribute to the investigation of genetic factors associated with psychiatric illnesses.

Full text

PDF
128

Images in this article

128Image
on p.128

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Baxter L. R., Jr, Mazziotta J. C., Pahl J. J., Grafton S. T., St George-Hyslop P., Haines J. L., Gusella J. F., Szuba M. P., Selin C. E., Guze B. H. Psychiatric, genetic, and positron emission tomographic evaluation of persons at risk for Huntington's disease. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1992 Feb;49(2):148–154. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.1992.01820020068009. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bolt J. M. Huntington's chorea in the West of Scotland. Br J Psychiatry. 1970 Mar;116(532):259–270. doi: 10.1192/bjp.116.532.259. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Dewhurst K., Oliver J. E., McKnight A. L. Socio-psychiatric consequences of Huntington's disease. Br J Psychiatry. 1970 Mar;116(532):255–258. doi: 10.1192/bjp.116.532.255. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Folstein S. E., Folstein M. F. Psychiatric features of Huntington's disease: recent approaches and findings. Psychiatr Dev. 1983 Summer;1(2):193–205. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Folstein S. E., Franz M. L., Jensen B. A., Chase G. A., Folstein M. F. Conduct disorder and affective disorder among the offspring of patients with Huntington's disease. Psychol Med. 1983 Feb;13(1):45–52. doi: 10.1017/s0033291700050054. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Folstein S., Abbott M. H., Chase G. A., Jensen B. A., Folstein M. F. The association of affective disorder with Huntington's disease in a case series and in families. Psychol Med. 1983 Aug;13(3):537–542. doi: 10.1017/s0033291700047966. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Jensen P., Sørensen S. A., Fenger K., Bolwig T. G. A study of psychiatric morbidity in patients with Huntington's disease, their relatives, and controls. Admissions to psychiatric hospitals in Denmark from 1969 to 1991. Br J Psychiatry. 1993 Dec;163:790–797. doi: 10.1192/bjp.163.6.790. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Jones C. T., Morris S., Yates C. M., Moffoot A., Sharpe C., Brock D. J., St Clair D. Mutation in codon 713 of the beta amyloid precursor protein gene presenting with schizophrenia. Nat Genet. 1992 Jul;1(4):306–309. doi: 10.1038/ng0792-306. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Koide R., Ikeuchi T., Onodera O., Tanaka H., Igarashi S., Endo K., Takahashi H., Kondo R., Ishikawa A., Hayashi T. Unstable expansion of CAG repeat in hereditary dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy (DRPLA). Nat Genet. 1994 Jan;6(1):9–13. doi: 10.1038/ng0194-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Nagafuchi S., Yanagisawa H., Sato K., Shirayama T., Ohsaki E., Bundo M., Takeda T., Tadokoro K., Kondo I., Murayama N. Dentatorubral and pallidoluysian atrophy expansion of an unstable CAG trinucleotide on chromosome 12p. Nat Genet. 1994 Jan;6(1):14–18. doi: 10.1038/ng0194-14. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Pflanz S., Besson J. A., Ebmeier K. P., Simpson S. The clinical manifestation of mental disorder in Huntington's disease: a retrospective case record study of disease progression. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 1991 Jan;83(1):53–60. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1991.tb05511.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. St Clair D. Expanded CAG trinucleotide repeat of Huntington's disease gene in a patient with schizophrenia and normal striatal histology. J Med Genet. 1994 Aug;31(8):658–659. doi: 10.1136/jmg.31.8.658. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Watt D. C., Seller A. A clinico-genetic study of psychiatric disorder in Huntington's chorea. Psychol Med. 1993;Suppl 23:1–46. doi: 10.1017/s0264180100001193. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Medical Genetics are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES