Huntington's Disease ans Spatial Memory and Perception

Perception and short-term spatial memory were investigated in patients with huntington's disease (HD), HD gene carriers, unilateral basal ganglia lesion patients and healthy control subjects (Harris, Armstrong, Swain, Erzindioglu, Das, Burgess et al., 2019).

Participants performed the Four Mountains Task, which is a test of spatial memory. Either simultaneously, concerning perception, or after a two second delay, concerning memory, the subjects were presented with an array of four landscapes and were required to depict the picture that did contain the right landscape from a point of view that was different from the original picture. Incorrect picture consisted of foils, these were a spatial foil, a configural foil, and an elemental foil. There were both spatial and non-spatial blocks given for perception trials and for memory trials.

It was found that patients with HD exhibited deficits in spatial perception and memory as assessed by the Four Mountains Task. The severity of the disease was positively correlated with these impairments. It is suggested that hippocampal dysfunction resulted in HD patients impairments (Harris et al., 2019).