Objective: To assess subjective and objective measures of emotional stress via standardized scales and a physiological measure (salivary cortisol) in persons with Huntington’s Disease (HD) and healthy controls.

Background: Psychological stress is known to augments neurodegeneration. In HD we also see diffuse volume loss in the brain including critical areas involved in the HPA axis. HD cortisol studies have yielded inconsistent results across human studies. This variability may be due to methods of testing – we are not aware of any studies in manifest HD that completed the generally recommended 3 days of sampling to account for the day to day variations known to be seen in cortisol.

Method: Subjects were recruited from Portland Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center and Oregon Health and Sciences University Movement Disorder clinics. Participants collected their saliva 4 times a day for 3 consecutive days (awakening, 30 minutes after awakening, noon, and bedtime). The following scales were also completed: Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA) and for persons with HD The United Huntington’s Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS). Salivary cortisol samples were batch processed using Cortisol 125I RIA kits (ICN Diagnostics Inc).

Results: Our final analysis will include 24 persons with manifest HD and 24 age matched controls. Cases and controls were matched without replacement on gender and age (± 5 years). Average age was 53.5 (SD = 14.1) years for HD and 54.8 (SD = 13.6) years for controls, 50% of participants were female/50% were male. Matched controls & HD groups did not differ in age, education, perceived stress, or anxiety. There was a trend for the HD group to have more depression than the controls (t(22) = 1.9, p = 0.07). We are currently in process of analyzing the samples and will compare the relationship between objective and subjective measures of stress, anxiety, and depression. We will also examine this relationship in persons with HD as compared to healthy controls.

Conclusion: This is the first study we are aware of that looked at an objective measure of physiologic stress in the form of salivary cortisol in persons with manifest HD and collected this data over multiple days.  Salivary cortisol is a possible target for future studies in HD as an objective measure of physiologic stress but it first needs to be better characterized in persons with HD as we are doing with this study.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/measuring-cortisol-levels-in-persons-with-huntingtons-disease/