E004 IMAGINE-HD: imaging iron accumulation and neuroinflammation in Huntington’s disease

<h3>Background</h3> Clinical markers are often subjective and represent measurements with an intrinsic variability, usually influenced by various factors. Therefore researchers are looking for objective biomarkers for disease state and disease progression. Iron accumulation and neuroinflammation are pathological processes that have been associated with disease progression of Huntington’s Disease (HD) and could potentially be used in biomarker research. <h3>Aims</h3> This study aims to investigate the correlation between disease progression and altered levels of iron and neuroinflammatory markers in the basal ganglia of HD gene expansion carriers. <h3>Methods</h3> In this EHDN seed funded project, a total of 82 participants (25 premanifest, 32 manifest and 25 healthy controls) were scanned on a 7T MRI scanner (Philips, Netherlands). 3DMPRAGE T1-weighted images were used for segmentation and volume measurements. Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) was used to quantify iron concentration in the brain. ¹H Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) was used to measure levels of myoinositol (Ins) and choline (Cho), neuroinflammation metabolites, in a volume-of-interest (VOI) located in the basal ganglia. <h3>Outcome</h3> Magnetic susceptibility, metabolite concentrations and volume will be quantified and compared between the subgroups, building on the promising outcomes of our pilot (n=9) analyses (EHDN 2022). These measurements will also be correlated with clinical characteristics and demographics, like the CAP-score. <h3>Conclusions</h3> With our study, we investigate whether iron accumulation and neuroinflammation, measured on a 7T MRI, could be used as biomarkers for disease progression in HD. In the future, we will link these neuroimaging markers with CSF and blood data from this study population.