Using an innovative computational approach to analyze vast brain cell gene expression datasets, researchers at MIT and Sorbonne Université have found that Huntington’s disease may progress to advanced stages more because of a degradation of the cells’ health maintenance systems than because of increased damage from the disease pathology itself.
The analysis yielded a trove of specific gene networks governing molecular pathways that disease researchers may now be able to target to better sustain brain cell health amid the devastating neurodegenerative disorder, says co-senior author Myriam Heiman, associate professor in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and an investigator at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. Christian Neri of the Sorbonne’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique is the co-senior and co-corresponding author of the study published in eLife.
