Huntington+prevention,+treatment+and+how+it's+passed+on

===__Treatment:__ Unfortunately there is no cure for Huntington’s disease, and there is no known way to stop the disease from getting worse. The goal of treatment is to slow down the coarse of the disease and help the person function for as long as possible. Medications vary depending on the symptoms. Dopamine blockers, like haloperidol, may help reduce abnormal behaviors and movements. Drugs, including amantadine, are used to try to control extrapyramidal movements. There has been some evidence to suggest that coenzyme Q10 may also help slow down the course of the disease. === http://www.neurologychannel.com/huntingtons/treatment.shtml

===__Prevention:__ Huntington’s disease can only be completely prevented if there is no reproduction in families with a history of Huntington’s disease. parental diagnostic test can be carried out to calculate the risk of developing the disease early in pregnancy. If you have a family history of Huntington's disease, you may want to consider genetic counseling before having kids and starting a family. A blood test can determine the presence of the faulty gene, a repetition of " CAG " even before you show signs or symptoms. If one parent carries the defective gene, his or her child has a 50 percent chance of developing Huntington's disease. If you're at risk of passing the genetic defect that causes Huntington's disease to your children, you may wish to consider adoption or certain forms of assisted reproduction. One possibility is in vitro fertilization with pre-implantation screening. In this procedure, embryos are screened for the Huntington's disease gene mutation, and those that don't have the mutation are then implanted in the woman's uterus. ===

===** [] ** ===

=== === This is a family tree showing how HD is passed from one generation to the next.

===__Mutation:__ Extra base pairs may be added or deleted from the DNA of a gene. The number of bases can range from a few to thousands. Insertions, deletions and multiples of one or two bases cause frame shifts. These can have devastating effects because the mRNA (messenger RNA - carries out information from DNA) is translated in new groups of three nucleotides and the protein being produced may be useless. In Huntington’s disease, the repeated trinucleotide is “CAG”. This adds a string of glutamines to the Huntington protein. The abnormal protein produced interferes with synaptic transmission in parts of the brain leading to involuntary movements and loss of motor control. ===