Huntington’s Disease: Genetics, Symptoms, and Therapeutic Gaps
Huntington’s disease is often described as having Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s rolled into one—a neurodegenerative triple threat that devastates motor control, cognition, and behavior in a single blow. Caused by the expansion of CAG repeats in the HTT gene, the disease produces toxic huntingtin protein aggregates that progressively destroy neurons. Onset typically strikes between 30 and 50 years of age, though longer repeats can trigger the even more aggressive juvenile form (<20 years).
Inheritance is unforgiving: each child of an affected parent has a 50% ris...
