An intellectually stimulating lifestyle is key to fighting Huntington’s disease, study finds

An intellectually active lifestyle, otherwise known as cognitive reserve, has a protective effect on the progression and severity of symptoms of motor, cognitive and psychiatric impairments of Huntington’s disease. This serious neurodegenerative pathology of genetic origin can appear in adulthood – generally around the age of 40 – and is currently not cured.

The paper, published In Scientific reportsis led by a team of researchers from the Cognition and Brain Plasticity group at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and the University of Barcelona, ​​in collaboration with other research centers.

In previous studies, the team had found that this lifestyle provided benefits in terms of cognitive symptoms, but the new study shows the transfer of these effects to the two other clinical areas of patients with Huntington’s disease: motor and psychiatric.

The triple protective effect of cognitive reserve

As part of the study, predoctoral researcher Audrey De Paepe, from the Faculty of Psychology of UB and IDIBELL, and other experts, led by Professor Estela Camara (UB and IDIBELL), assessed cognitive reserve of a group of patients through factors such as education level, professional occupation, academic and musical background, number of languages ​​known, reading activity or frequency with which they play intellectually complex games such as chess.

This information was supplemented by neuroimaging tests in relation to intellectual activity throughout life. Modeling was also carried out to see if there were differences in the typical symptoms of the disease depending on the cognitive lifestyle of the participants.

The results of the study demonstrated that an increase mental activity throughout life is a protective factor against neurodegeneration and helps maintain good brain health for longer.